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(From Agence France Presse)
US President George W. Bush heads to a Group of Eight summit Sunday touting a new drive against weapons of mass destruction targeting a legal loophole aiding North Korea's missile exports.
The plan was inspired by an embarrassing incident in December when the Spanish navy stopped and searched an unflagged vessel found to be carrying 15 North Korean Scud missiles to Yemen.
Despite its misgivings, the Bush administration concluded it had no legal right to seize the cargo as the ship was intercepted in international waters.
"That was not the favorite moment of many people who worked on this issue," said a senior Bush administration official on condition of anonymity accompanying the president to Saint Petersburg's 300th anniversary celebrations.
"It was as a result of this that the administration started thinking about ways to develop new capabilities and groups of countries willing to develop legal tools and pool resources to actually prevent proliferation from occurring."
Bush said in the first leg of his European tour in Krakow on Saturday that Poland had already signed up to the plan. He was likely to seek more support when he joins the G8 summit in Evian, France, later Sunday.