Struggling to repair troubled relations, US President George W. Bush prodded Russian President Vladimir Putin about Moscow's retreat from democracy, but the Russian leader bluntly rejected the criticism and insisted there was no backsliding.
"Strong countries are built by developing strong democracies," Bush said he told Putin on Thursday. "I think Vladimir heard me loud and clear."
PHOTO: AP
"Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy," the Russian leader replied.
Confronting criticism that he is quashing dissent and consolidating power, Putin said Russia chose democracy 14 years ago.
"There can be no return to what we used to have before," he said.
Four years after Bush said he had gotten a sense of Putin's soul and found him trustworthy, the two leaders talked for 2 1/2 hours at a hilltop castle in hopes of easing mounting distrust between Moscow and Washington. Bush said he had not changed his opinion of Putin and wanted to remain friends.
"This is the kind of fellow who, when he says `Yes,' he means yes, and when he says `No,' he means no," Bush said.
Still, Bush challenged Putin about his government's behavior, saying that democracies reflect a country's customs and culture but must have "a rule of law and protection of minorities, a free press and a viable political opposition."
He said he talked with Putin about his "concerns about Russia's commitment in fulfilling these universal principles" and about Putin's restrictions on the press.
"I'm not the minister of propaganda," Putin said, standing alongside Bush at a news conference.
They also confronted differences over Moscow's arms sales to Syria and Russia's help for Iran's nuclear program. While Bush tried to keep a smile on his face throughout the session with reporters, Putin seemed tense.
It was their first meeting since Bush opened his second term with a promise to spread democracy and freedom and the assertion that relations with all leaders would be predicated on how they treat their people. Bush faced pressure at home from prominent members of both major American parties to get tough with Putin, and their talks were seen by some as a test of whether the president would put his inaugural pledges into practice.
For more than an hour of their meeting, the leaders were alone with only translators, in a private session that was the longest they have had in more than four years, a senior US official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the discussions were never heated.
In public, Putin compared his move to end direct popular election of regional governors to the US process of electing presidents indirectly, through the Electoral College, rather than through the results of the popular vote.
"And it's not considered undemocratic, is it?" Putin said.
He suggested that Russians who oppose his actions, such as a campaign against the Yukos oil company and his shutdown of independent media outlets, can sway public opinion because they "are richer than those who are in favor ... We often do not pay the attention to that," Putin said.
Bush was challenged as well, by a Russian journalist who asked about "violations of the rights of journalists in the United States" without giving specifics.
Bush seemed irritated. He said he talked with Putin about Russian press freedom and that the Russian leader asked in turn about practices in the US.
"People do get fired in American press," the president said, adding that they get fired by editors or producers or others -- not by the government.
But while saying that a free press is the sign of a healthy society, Bush added, "Obviously there has got to be constraints. There's got to be truth."
Another question from a Russian reporter prompted a broad defense from Bush on the way democracy is practiced in the US.
"I'm perfectly comfortable in telling you, our country is one that safeguards human rights and human dignity, and we resolve our disputes in a peaceful way," he said.
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