Print

Mail

wiki links

Putin mending fences with UK

Britain laid on a sumptuous royal welcome on Tuesday for the first Russian state visit since 1874, with President Vladimir Putin immediately setting about mending fences over the Iraq war.

Surprising his audience by speaking in English at a state banquet at Buckingham Palace, he expressed his condolences over six British soldiers killed in Iraq earlier in the day.

"I would like to express ... our sincere condolences for the loss of British soldiers in Iraq," he said.

"It is clear to everyone that in spite of the differences that existed before, today we need to act jointly," he added.

Putin will meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair privately for only half an hour during his four-day visit to London and Edinburgh, but the two men will have other opportunities to chat at royal ceremonies and an energy conference.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II opened the proceedings to welcome the former KGB spy with a similar gesture of rapprochement.

"It is no secret that there were significant differences between our countries earlier this year on how best to handle Iraq," she said.

"But now we are able to look forward together firmly in agreement on the route we have decided in the United Nations."

The president's visit may bring finalization of a US$6.75 billion deal, in which oil company BP Plc would buy a 50 percent stake in TNK, Russia's third largest oil company.

Human rights groups are also urging Blair to turn up the heat on Putin over Russia's war against Chechen rebels.

In the first such visit by a Russian head of state since Czar Alexander II sailed to Britain 129 years ago, Putin flew into London's Heathrow airport where he was met by heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.

Putin was then driven to central London for a formal ceremonial welcome by Queen Elizabeth and a guard of honor.

The Russian president laid a wreath outside the Imperial War Museum in south London in honor of some 27 million Soviet war dead from World War II.

He was to stay at Buckingham Palace during his trip, make a flying visit to Scotland yesterday and later open an energy conference and meet British businessmen.

But Putin, popular at home and facing re-election in March next year, has been internationally condemned for his clampdown on breakaway Chechnya.

The US is also annoyed by Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran.

He risks more criticism for his closure over the weekend of Russia's last independent television station.

Diplomats will be watching during the four-day visit to see if he soothes British pride for his taunting of Blair in April over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"Relations between our two countries are excellent and continue to go from strength to strength," Blair's spokesman insisted on Tuesday.

The issue is even more sensitive now for Blair, as he faces a parliamentary inquiry and falling public credibility over allegations he hyped up evidence about Saddam Hussein's weapons.

Blair, who received a bottle of vodka from Putin on his 50th birthday last month, was glowing about the Russian in public.

Calling Putin's visit "a remarkable event in the lives of our two countries," he told reporters from Russia's Itar-Tass news agency that the Russian leader "impressed me from the very beginning, and I regard him as a very strong politician who speaks plainly."
This story has been viewed 2351 times.