Russia-US gap too wide to be bridged
Updated: 2008-04-07 16:37
SOCHI, Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart George W. Bush held a farewell summit on Sunday in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, but warm handshakes and smiles are apparently not be enough to bridge the gap between the two countries, ties between whom have witnessed a slide in recent months.
As both Putin and Bush were winding up their terms, this summit was expected to be their last face-to-face chance to mend the frayed ties, which have been driven to a low by such issues as US plans for a missile defense shield in eastern Europe, the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Kosovo and Iraq.
Dispute over Missile Defense System
The thorniest issue is the US plan for building a long-range missile defense system in eastern Europe, Russia's concerns regarding which were renewed and deepened after the plan won NATO endorsement at a recent summit.
A NATO statement, issued after the summit this week, called on members to explore ways in which the planned US shield could be linked with future missile defense systems elsewhere.
The leaders "recognize the substantial contribution to the protection of allies from long-range ballistic missiles to be provided by the planned deployment of Europe-based US missile defence assets," the statement said.
Washington says the plan, which includes the installation of nine interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, aims to guard against missile attacks from "rogue states" and not to treat Russia as the suppositious enemy.
Moscow, however, terms the system a threat to its security despite such assurances from the United States.
"We closed our bases in Cam Ranh Bay (in Vietnam), on Cuba, we took our bases out of Eastern Europe. And what did we get? (US) Bases in Romania, bases in Bulgaria, the missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland," Putin told a press conference Friday in the Romanian capital Bucharest, after attending the NATO-Russia Council meeting.
"This is all the movement of military infrastructure towards our borders," he said.
Putin said the shield was an evidence of Western military might creeping toward Russian borders, something he said should have been consigned to history when the Iron Curtain fell.
Putin had earlier said the missile issue would be discussed at the Sochi summit, but the While House ruled out the possibility of reaching a deal this time around.
"We are going to have to do more work after Sochi," Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said on Bush's Air Force One as it headed to Russia.
When asked about the prospects of a deal on the missile issue, she said that "would be premature."
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