Iran's Nuclear Aims Top Bush-Germany Talks

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, speaks with EADS Space Transportation chief Evert Dudok, right, as they visit the full scale model of the European space laboratory "Columbus" in Bremen, northern Germany, Tuesday, May 2, 2006. The EADS Space Transportation on Tuesday handed over the "Columbus" space laboratory to the European Space Agency ESA. The lab will be shipped to Cape Canaveral in the United States at the end of the month, and is scheduled to be flown aboard a space shuttle to the international space station ISS in the second half of next year. (AP Photo/Ingo Wagner, Pool) (Ingo Wagner - AP)

This is Merkel's second visit with Bush in four months. Other issues on their agenda: Iraq, trade, the Middle East, Darfur peace talks, Merkel's scheduled visit to China next month and the G-8 summit in Russia.

Merkel and Bush had a friendly meeting during the chancellor's first trip in January, despite her criticism of the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was a sharp contrast to the chill that existed between Bush and Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, who was a vigorous critic of the war in Iraq.

"I had a lot of meetings with her predecessor, and I remember them fondly," Bush said about Schroeder. "And I thought our relations _ look, the Iraq war made relations difficult. People, they didn't _ the government didn't agree. And I understand that."

Merkel said she and Bush have a very good rapport. "And we bolster that friendship, also, by frequent telephone calls and constant contact," she said.

After seeing Bush at the White House and joining him and his wife, Laura, for dinner, Merkel goes to New York on Thursday for a meeting with business leaders. She returns to Washington that night to address the American Jewish Committee's gala marking the organization's 100th anniversary. No other German chancellor has addressed the AJC.

Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will join her.

In her remarks in New York, Merkel may touch on Iran, a subject of special immediate import to the Jewish community after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent statement that Israel should be "wiped off the face of the map."

Bush and Merkel's diplomatic friendship is strong, yet the two are facing very different political situations. Merkel's approval ratings in opinion polls top 80 percent, in sharp contrast to Bush, who is languishing at the lowest level of his presidency, 32 percent.

With British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac both facing domestic political difficulties and a new government soon to take over in Italy, Merkel arguably is the most popular politician in Europe.

Bush said Merkel has a unique perspective as the first German leader to come from the former communist East Germany.

"I'm talking to a very sophisticated leader who knows what it's like to live in a world that isn't free," Bush said. "And there's just something to me that is intriguing and important to have a partner in peace who brings that kind of perspective, who knows the discomfort of what it means to live under the iron hand of a communist ruler."