President George W. Bush will seek to mollify allies dismayed by the U.S. war in Iraq and launch a plan for wider change in the Middle East when he hosts leaders from the world's richest nations this week.
His path could be smoothed after a trip to Europe for Sunday's commemorations of the 1944 D-Day landings in France marked by warm words in praise of a "steadfast friend" from key Iraq war opponent President Jacques Chirac of France.
Bush, Chirac and leaders from Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia meet from Tuesday to Thursday on Sea Island in Georgia, a secluded resort that will be sealed to the outside world by thousands of soldiers and police using boat and helicopter patrols, road blocks and sniffer dogs.
Days before the annual summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, the United States is pressing for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq ahead of the formal end of the U.S.-led occupation on June 30.
Bush and Chirac, long at odds over Iraq, said after talks in Paris on Saturday they hoped for agreement soon. U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that the U.N. Security Council was expected to be able to agree a new resolution in the next few days.
If the transatlantic alliance has come under intense strain over Iraq, discord was put aside for Sunday's anniversary of the D-day landings in World War II as leaders paid tribute to the thousands of Allied troops who fought and died.
Chirac said France would never "forget what it owes America, its steadfast friend and ally," while Bush said the United States and its European allies were bound together by the sacrifices of 60 years ago.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin were also at the ceremonies.