Bush Prepares to Lock Horns with Putin

Security will be exceptionally tight for the US-Russia summit on Thursday in the Slovakian capital, with thousands of police officers and soldiers to be deployed and Slovakian airspace to be closed during the two-and-a-half-hour meeting.

More than 5,000 police, 400 firefighters and military personnel will be deployed in Bratislava, a city of 450,000 traversed by the Danube River during the summit. Zones to be sealed off include the area around the US embassy and the district around the presidential palace, the summit venue.

President Bush arrived in the Slovak capital on Wednesday evening from Mainz, Germany, on the final leg of a European tour designed to patch up rifts between the United States and Europe over the Iraq war. Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to arrive on Thursday morning.

Questions of democracy

Events may take on a similar feel to those in Europe where outward smiles attempted to hide tensions behind the scenes. Bush has already warned that Russia must "renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law." The US leader said Tuesday in Brussels that he would use his "good personal relationship" with the Russian leader to convey his concerns "in a cordial way."

"A constructive relationship allows me to remind him that I believe Russia is a European country, and European countries embrace those very same values that America embraces," Bush told reporters after meeting with European Union leaders.

Putin has taken a series of actions seen as increasingly autocratic, including moves against the oil giant Yukos, a clampdown on the media, new Kremlin authority to appoint regional officials and allegedly interfering in Ukraine's presidential elections. Washington is also concerned about Russian nuclear cooperation with Iran, which US officials accuse of trying to acquire atomic weapons.

Russian dealings with Iran a sore point

In Mainz on Wednesday, Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder united in warning Iran against developing a nuclear weapon. "It's vital that the Iranians hear the world speak with one voice that they shouldn't have nuclear weapons," Bush said.

Putin had said last week in Moscow that Russia, which is helping Iran build its first nuclear power reactor, was convinced that Iran has no intention of making atomic weapons.

Bush said he had heard some concerns about developments in Russia expressed by EU leaders during his talks in Brussels, notably formerly Soviet Baltic states which were among 10 countries to join the EU last year. "I think it's very important that President Putin hear not only from me in a private way, which he will, but also hears some of the concerns I heard around the table today," he said.

Putin defends Russian approach

But on Tuesday, Putin told Slovak media: "Democratic institutions should be adapted to today's realities in Russian life, to our traditions and our history."

"We are against use of this issue as an instrument for fulfilling foreign policy objectives or for making something amorphous of the Russian state, to manipulate in one way or another such a large and important country for international relations," the Russian leader said, according to a transcript released in Moscow by the Kremlin.

"But I don't think that is the aim of our partners," he said, stressing that Russia made its choice for democracy 14 years ago when the Soviet Union collapsed not in order to please any other countries "but for ourselves, for our country, for our citizens."

A number of potentially thorny subjects

Analysts in Moscow said however that Thursday's meeting, the second between the two leaders in three months, is unlikely to settle current differences.

Bush and Putin are due to discuss combatting terrorism, sign an accord imposing controls on shoulder-fired missiles, and review events in Iraq and North Korea as well as Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization. The two men are also expected to discuss the Yukos affair, sources said.