Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad will not get to meet President George W. Bush as hoped during his coming visit to the United States. Mahathir is due to leave Malaysia for New York on February 1 and he will address a meeting of the World Economic Forum in the U.S. city. He had hoped to travel on to Washington to meet Bush, but the U.S. State Department had cited "scheduling difficulties," say diplomats in Kuala Lumpur. The meeting, backed by the U.S. embassy in Malaysia, would have given the two men a chance to build on ties that have been warming ever since Mahathir endorsed the U.S. war on terrorism after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The premier embarks on a month-long holiday after the U.S. trip, an indicator of his political strength. He will visit a Malaysian scientific base in Antarctica during part of his break.