CONDOLEEZZA RICE was all smiles as she arrived in London yesterday to start her fence-mending first trip to Europe since becoming US Secretary of State.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, beamed as he stood alongside the world’s most powerful woman while she declared a “unity of purpose” over key challenges facing Western leaders.

They talked up the prospects of peace in the Middle East and Dr Rice pledged to return to London next month for the British-sponsored conference with the Palestinian Authority.

But Dr Rice’s buoyant public displays in London and Berlin masked the uncompromising message she delivered on two issues of paramount concern to Washington — Iran and China.

Speaking to journalists during her flight from Washington, Dr Rice said that the US was unwilling to join efforts by Britain, France and Germany to persuade Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear arms programme by offering it incentives.

Echoing President Bush’s State of the Union speech on Wednesday, she also declared: “The Iranian regime’s human rights behaviour and its behaviour toward its own population is something to be loathed.”

At a later press conference with Mr Straw, Dr Rice insisted that a military strike against Iran was “simply not on the agenda at this point in time”, but added that “nobody asks an American President to take any option off his table”.

She gave warning that the Iranians had been offered a diplomatic way of fulfilling their international obligations — by Europe — and “they ought to take it”.

On the European Union’s plan to lift its arms embargo against China, Dr Rice moved swiftly to close down questions, saying that the issue had not featured in her breakfast talks with Mr Straw and Tony Blair.

But US officials later cautioned strongly against the plan, which has caused deep concern in Washington. They explained that Congress was growing increasingly alarmed at the prospect of the US military one day having to come to the defence of Taiwan against a China equipped with European arms.

The first day of Dr Rice’s trip, billed as a grand diplomatic tour — Warsaw today, Tel Aviv tomorrow, Rome on Monday, Paris on Tuesday, Brussels and Luxembourg on Wednesday — to celebrate all that the US has in common with Europe and repair historic ties, scarcely managed to conceal differences of opinion.

From London she flew to Berlin for a 60-minute meeting with Gerhard Schröder, the Chancellor, aimed at rebuilding links with “old Europe” damaged by the Iraq war.

On the aircraft to Berlin, she told US reporters: “Iranians are continuing to play games with their enrichment programme.”

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