Bush warm and a little sentimental, says Putin

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JULY 19. Ahead of his second meeting with the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, in Genoa at the weekend, the Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, toned down his vociferous opposition to the U.S. missile defence plans and praised the personal and professional qualities of the U.S. leader.

Addressing his first full-scale press-conference in the Kremlin on Wednesday, Mr. Putin sought to dispel fears of a joint response with China to U.S. plans to abandon the 1972 ABM treaty and build a missile defence shield. ``It is possible in principle. But in practice, we do not plan joint actions with any country, including China,'' Mr. Putin said. ``Russia is strong enough to respond on its own to any changes in the sphere of strategic stability.''

The Russian leader chose to ignore the U.S. missile- defence test last week and would not reiterate his recent threat to redeploy multiple nuclear warheads on Russian missiles if the U.S. went ahead with building a national missile defence. He confined himself to stating that Russia ``will be above all guided by interests of its national security'' in responding to a possible U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

At the same time Mr. Putin warmly recalled his first meeting with the U.S. President, Mr. Bush, in Ljubljana last month. The Russian leader described his U.S. counterpart as a ``competent interlocutor'', a ``rather warm'' and ``a little sentimental'' person, with whom he had struck a rapport. Mr. Putin's complimentary remarks were clearly designed to create a favourable atmosphere for his second one-to-one meeting with Mr. Bush in Genoa on the sidelines of the G-8 summit, which opens on Friday. Despite Washington's decision to continue missile-defence tests that will effectively breach the ABM Treaty, Russia still hopes to engage the U.S. in talks on ways of preserving the treaty.

After a two-hour meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Colin Powell, in Rome on Wednesday, Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr. Igor Ivanov, underlined Moscow's willingness to open a ``constructive dialogue'' with the U.S. on strategic issues. Mr. Putin is expected to press Mr. Bush in Genoa to begin expert- level talks on new security threats and ways of dealing with them in two working groups they agreed to set up at their first meeting. Washington has been dragging its feet on the working groups while speeding up work on the missile defence programme.

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Section  : International
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