Bush

VIENNA, Austria — President Bush began talks with European leaders today amid rising concern about North Korea's apparent plans to test a long-range ballistic missile believed capable of reaching the United States.

The issue is one of several overshadowing the U.S.-European Union summit, which began with a morning meeting between Bush and Heinz Fischer, the president of Austria, which holds the 25-nation EU's rotating presidency.

Fischer told Austrian media he raised the issue of the U.S. detention center for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with Bush, acknowledging it was "a delicate and difficult problem in relations between the European Union and the United States." Europeans have called on the U.S. to close the facility. Bush, he said, responded by saying: "But we're going to solve it."

The looming standoff with North Korea wasn't apparent at the outset of the meeting at the ornate Hofburg Palace. Bush joked that he and Fischer were like "thorns between two roses" as they posed for photographs between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik.

North Korea said today that it wants direct talks with the United States, which has insisted it will only speak to the North at talks involving four other countries. The White House said North Korea's desire for direct talks was not new, and that it wants to continue to use the venue of six-nation talks as the forum for communications.

Today, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Thomas Scheiffer said the United States has means of responding to a North Korean missile test that it didn't have the last time Pyongyang carried out a launch in 1998, and is considering all options.

Scheiffer didn't say what those options were, but U.S. defense officials in Washington said Tuesday the Pentagon is considering attempting to intercept the missile if it is fired over the Pacific. The officials agreed to discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity because of its political sensitivity.

The formal agenda for the annual U.S.-EU summit centers on reducing the West's addiction to imported oil and gas, fighting terror, protecting intellectual property rights and discussing an EU plan to channel critically needed cash to the Palestinians.