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Putin seeks to mend fences in UK

Russian President Vladimir Putin will use his pomp-filled state visit to Britain this week to smooth over past differences over the war in Iraq and promote strong economic ties, analysts and officials say.

Putin was to leave for London today on the first state visit by a Russian leader since 1874.

"For us, this sort of cooperation is of the highest importance -- with regard to key international questions, problems of Russian integration in the European economy and bilateral relations," Putin told reporters last week.

In addition to meeting with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace and traveling to the Scottish capital Edinburgh, Putin will meet with Prime Minister Tony Blair and the two will open an energy conference together.

"Not only I, but all the members of my delegation are looking forward to new breakthroughs in terms of political and economic co-operation," Putin said in an interview with Sir David Frost, which was broadcast Sunday by the BBC.

Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, said Putin and Blair would hold wide-ranging talks on Iraq, including "principles of the postwar restoration ... [and] the role of the United Nations in that process, trade and economic problems, as well as Iraqi debts," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. He said the two leaders' views of how to handle Iraq "have been coming closer of late."

The Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs will also be high on the agenda, Prikhodko said.

"The problems of those two countries are different, but the exchange of views on them is sure to take place," Prikhodko was quoted as saying.

Strains between the two leaders over the US-led war on Iraq appear to have eased and neither leader is likely to aggravate old wounds, said Alexander Pikayev, an analyst at the Carnegie Center in Moscow.

However, Blair has come under increasing pressure from lawmakers and human rights groups to confront Putin on human-rights abuses in Chechnya.

Blair has said he would raise the issue, but at the same time recognizing the suffering of Russians at the hands of Chechen rebels.

"No side will try to raise conspicuously the questions of Chechnya or the illegality of actions in Iraq," said Alexei Gromyko, head of the Center for British Studies at the Institute of Europe in Moscow. "There will be a sort of understanding that both sides are vulnerable."

Two thorns in Putin's side -- Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev and tycoon Boris Berezovsky -- are currently in exile in London, fighting Russia's efforts to extradite them.

Analysts predicted that Putin and Blair would try to avoid publicly addressing their cases.

"They could be mentioned, but they won't be subject to political discussions," Pikayev said.

The last official state visit to Britain by a Russian leader was by Czar Alexander II at the invitation of Queen Victoria in 1874. Former President Boris Yeltsin was never invited -- due to both the Cold War legacy and probably his "controversial personality," Pikayev said.
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