May 9, 2005
Despite Tension, Bush-Putin Meeting Is Called a Success
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
MOSCOW, May 8 - President Bush met Sunday night with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in what was widely expected to be a tense encounter after days of recriminations over Russian rollbacks of democracy and the Soviet Union's actions in the World War II era, but the top foreign policy advisers to both men swiftly pronounced the meeting a success.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, appeared in an unusual joint briefing at a guest house on the grounds of Mr. Putin's presidential dacha outside Moscow to say the two leaders had talked extensively about nuclear proliferation and Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza this summer.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin even took a brief spin on the dacha grounds in a gleaming 1956 Volga, with Mr. Bush at the wheel. In a photograph that is likely to become a symbol of the good will that the White House and Kremlin sought to portray here on a damp spring evening, the two presidents waved from the windows as the car, purchased by Mr. Putin last year, emerged from a forest of birches.
"I'm having so much fun, we're going for another lap," Mr. Bush told reporters.
But the two sides announced no formal agreements or breakthroughs, and the meeting seemed more of a place holder until Russia holds a summit meeting of the world's major industrial democracies, the Group of 8, in St. Petersburg next summer.
The session also appeared to be a public relations corrective after the awkward news conference that Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin held in Bratislava, Slovakia, in February, when Mr. Putin was reported to have lectured Mr. Bush for 40 minutes in a meeting beforehand about what he considered America's imperfect democracy.
Before leaving for Moscow, senior Bush administration officials said they expected that Mr. Putin would express his unhappiness about Mr. Bush's five-day itinerary in Europe, which is centered on the celebration planned for Monday in Red Square for the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Mr. Bush has tried to temper the spectacle of his planned attendance at a military parade in the shadow of the Kremlin with stops to promote democracy in Latvia and Georgia, two former Soviet republics that are now independent nations with contentious relationships with Russia.
Mr. Bush - who had said only the day before in a speech in Latvia that the Nazi defeat gave the Soviet Union the opportunity to occupy much of Eastern and Central Europe, including Latvia - struck a new emphasis on Sunday with Mr. Putin at his side.
"I am looking forward to the celebration tomorrow," Mr. Bush said. "It is a moment where the world will recognize the great bravery and sacrifice the Russian people made in the defeat of Nazism."
"I'm glad you invited me and Laura to dinner tonight," he added. "Having had one of your meals before, I'm looking forward to this one a lot."
Mr. Bush's itinerary has angered the Russians, as has his criticism of Mr. Putin's rollbacks of democracy. In the speech in Latvia, Mr. Bush warned Mr. Putin not to interfere with the young democracies on his borders.
Moscow has furiously responded that the Soviet Union was invited to march into Latvia and other Baltic nations and that it is Mr. Bush who is meddling in the affairs of the former Soviet republics. In an interview with the CBS News program "60 Minutes" for broadcast in the United States on Sunday night, Mr. Putin said the United States had no business lecturing him about democracy after the contested American presidential election of 2000.
"Four years ago, your presidential election was decided by the court," Mr. Putin told the correspondent Mike Wallace. "But we're not going to poke our noses into your democratic system, because that's up to the American people."
But Ms. Rice and Mr. Lavrov, as well as Stephen J. Hadley, the United States national security adviser, played down the rancor that appeared to build as Mr. Bush made his way toward Russia. They repeatedly said the meeting between the presidents - 40 minutes with just the two leaders and interpreters, followed by 45 minutes when they were joined by aides - was "open" and "constructive."
"These two men have developed a relationship in which they can talk about any subject, and talk about it in a constructive and friendly manner," Mr. Lavrov said.
Ms. Rice said: "I would characterize the relationship as absolutely straightforward. They say what they think, they say what they mean, and then they act on that."
Ms. Rice, Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Hadley, who briefed reporters after a two-hour dinner with Mr. Bush, Mr. Putin, their wives and aides, said that the most extensive discussions centered on the Middle East and a meeting in Moscow on Monday of representatives from the United States, Europe, the United Nations and Russia to discuss Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza.
On Monday in Moscow, Mr. Bush is to attend the parade in Red Square, have his picture taken with about 50 other world leaders and attend a lunch at the Kremlin before leaving for Georgia to visit President Mikhail Saakashvili, who rose to power in the 2003 "Rose Revolution," a street uprising against Russian domination.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Bush spoke before the sweeping arcs of white crosses and Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, where he said the 8,301 Americans buried there in World War II "underscore the terrible price we pay for that victory."
In a speech on a cold, windy morning, Mr. Bush sought to tie the Allied victory over Hitler six decades ago to his call for the spread of democracy now.
"At the outset of the war, there were those who believed that democracy was too soft to survive, especially against a Nazi Germany that boasted the most professional, well-equipped and highly trained military forces in the world," Mr. Bush said. "Yet, this military would be brought down by a coalition of armies from our democratic allies and freedom fighters from occupied lands and underground resistance leaders. They fought side by side with American G.I.'s, who, only months before, had been farmers and bank clerks and factory hands."
The "world's tyrants" learned a lesson, he said: "There is no power like the power of freedom, and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for that freedom."
The cemetery, the third largest of the American war cemeteries in Europe, lies in the lush farmland of the southeastern Netherlands, where in 1944 and 1945 the Allies liberated the country. Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende, in a speech that preceded Mr. Bush's, told the crowd of 10,000 that "our gratitude is too great to express in words."
Mr. Balkenende opened his speech with a tribute to two Americans: "Sixty years ago today, Jack B. Blackett and Max E. Good died. They came from California and Georgia. They fought for freedom and peace in Europe. And they were laid to rest here, in Margraten."
Mr. Bush in turned thanked the Dutch for bringing flowers to the cemetery's graves every Memorial Day, a tradition of six decades. "Your kindness has brought comfort to thousands of American families separated from their loved ones here by an ocean," the president said. "And on behalf of a grateful America, I thank you for treating our men and women as your sons and daughters."
No comments:
Post a Comment