US President George W. Bush praised Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday as a “smart guy” who means what he says, even as they clashed on US missile defense plans.
The two leaders, holding their first face-to-face meeting since Medvedev took the reins from Vladimir Putin in May, also highlighted their cooperation in diplomatic efforts to resolve nuclear disputes with Iran and North Korea.
“There are topics on which we are making progress, such as Iran and North Korea, but there topics on which we diverge, such as the missile shield and European matters, but there are possibilities for agreement,” said Medvedev at the meeting on the fringes of a summit of rich nations in Japan.
PHOTO: AFP
“While there’s [sic] some areas of disagreement, there’s [sic] also areas where I know we can work together for the common good,” the US president said. “I found him to be a smart guy who understood the issues very well.”
“Iran is an area where Russia and the United States have worked closely in the past and will continue to work closely to convince the regime to give up its desire to enrich uranium,” he added.
Seven years after Bush declared he had looked into Putin’s eyes at their first meeting, seen his soul and deemed him trustworthy, the US president declined to offer a similar assessment of the new Russian leader.
“I’m not going to sit here and psychoanalyze the man, but I will tell you that he’s very comfortable, he’s confident,” Bush said. “You may not agree with what he tells you, but at least you know it’s what he believes.”
Later, Medvedev’s diplomatic adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, said the Russian president had warned Bush that installing part of a missile defense shield in Lithuania was “absolutely unacceptable.”
Thus-far inconclusive US talks with Poland on basing 10 missile interceptors there have fueled media reports that Washington may be looking at other possible sites, including Lithuania.
“Any missile defense installation, no matter where in Europe, is not a threat to Russia,” said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who called any discussion of bases in Lithuania rather than Poland “premature.”
Bush leaves office in fewer than 200 days and is at his last G8 summit, while Medvedev took office in May and is making his debut at the elite gathering of leaders.
“I reminded him that, yes, I’m leaving, but not until six months and I’m sprinting to the finish. So we can get a lot done together and, you know, a lot of important issues,” the US leader said.
Bush had been expected to raise US worries about the rule of law and democracy in Russia and flaring tensions between former Soviet satellite Georgia and its giant neighbor are on the agenda, US officials said.
He had also planned to reaffirm his support for admitting Russia to the WTO, as they met on the margins of the G8 summit of industrialized nations in the mountain resort.
With his youthful image and reputation for openness, Medvedev, 42, cuts a different character from his mentor Putin, who retains the powerful post of prime minister.
In policy terms, Medvedev has few differences from Putin — notably opposition to US plans to deploy a missile defense system against what Washington says is a threat from Iran and North Korea.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS