Bush to meet Putin for first time
US President George W. Bush wants to persuade Russia to forge a new partnership between the former Cold War foes and abandon a three-decade-old ban on national missile defences.
However, aides to Bush who today meets his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for the first time said they expected no breakthrough agreement on the issue that most sharply divides Washington and Moscow: Bush’s plan to create a system to shield against missile attacks.
Russia says Bush’s approach would ignite a new arms race, although it has expressed a willingness to explore possible changes to current arms-control programmes.
The US president hopes to begin consultations among his Cabinet members and Russian ministers on security and economic issues, US officials said.
Yet Bush also wants to abandon a high-level panel, run by then-Vice President Al Gore and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, that oversaw major US-Russian issues during Bill Clinton’s presidency.
Before flying to Slovenia to meet Putin, Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, were to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at a Warsaw monument to the Home Army, the main Polish underground resistance to German occupation during World War II.
