Russia: Russia and the US said yesterday their relationship had weathered the storm over war in Iraq, but tension over Iran has diminished prospects of a meaningful reconciliation between Presidents Putin and Bush when they meet in St Petersburg tomorrow, writes Daniel McLaughlin in St Petersburg
Less than two years since the leaders bonded over a shared commitment to crush terrorism, a range of questions threatens to strain diplomatic ties between Washington and Moscow. These include everything from Iraqi oil to international trade, and missile defence to the nuclear reactor that the US wants Russia to stop building for Iran.
Both sides sounded upbeat ahead of the meeting aimed at ending a tense period between the old Cold War foes. The past few months saw wrangling over whether war in Iraq was justified; whether Russian firms were supplying Baghdad with arms; and what role the United Nations should play in rebuilding the country. "Vladimir Putin and I do have a good relationship," Mr Bush said before leaving Washington for a week-long trip that will take in Poland, Russia, France, Egypt, Jordan and Qatar. It will be his first trip to Europe since the Iraq war and the transatlantic dispute that preceded it.
Mr Bush said he backed Russia's long-delayed entry into the World Trade Organisation and would push the US Congress to scrap the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a law that irks Moscow by denying it normal trade relations with the US because of Russia's communist past.
In an interview with France's Le Figaro newspaper, Mr Bush suggested that his affection for Mr Putin was undiminished despite recent diplomatic squabbles. "My personal relations with Vladimir Putin are so good that I can trust him," he said.
"We need to go beyond a personal relationship to build a strategic relationship covering all key issues. Whether it's about security, energy or agriculture, we must resolve our differences before they become problems."
Mr Bush's positive tone echoed that of Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, a fierce critic of Washington before and during the war in Iraq.
"We can confidently say that Russian-US relations have passed another serious test," Mr Ivanov wrote of the Iraq crisis in London's Times newspaper last week.
However, aside from fears by Russian firms that the US will squeeze them out of Iraq's post-war oil sector, Moscow knows it faces tough talking over Iran's nuclear programme.
Russia insists that the Bushehr plant that its engineers are building for Tehran poses no weapons threat, but Washington increasing the pressure on Moscow to halt its co-operation with Iran, considered by the US as a potentially dangerous "rogue state". Moscow needs the money from the project. And Mr Putin knows that with parliamentary and presidential elections in the next year, he cannot give his domestic political enemies any opportunity to portray him as a US puppet to a largely anti-American electorate.
In what looked like a move to defuse tension over Iran, Russia's Atomic Energy Minister, Mr Alexander Rumyantsev, suggested yesterday that the US could join Moscow in building the Bushehr nuclear plant. Senior Russian ministers have also recently made overtures to the US regarding missile defence, and have suggested that Moscow may be willing to work with Washington to develop a system that the Kremlin had originally opposed as liable to restart an arms race.
Despite the urgings of rights groups on both sides of the Atlantic, Mr Bush is unlikely to challenge Mr Putin over the war in Chechnya, where a bus was blown up yesterday, killing at least three people.