May 31, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 28, 1424

MOSCOW, May 30: The “peace camp” troika formed by France, Germany and Russia to oppose the US-led war in Iraq is not a new force aiming to counter US power, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in an interview published on Friday, one day ahead of a Russia-EU summit.

“Our cooperation is not directed against the United States or any other government,” Schroeder said in an interview with Kommersant daily, published on the eve of the Saint Petersburg summit.

“Nor does it represent cooperation within some sort of new geo-political bloc,” he said.

Russian officials and media have billed the summit as a meeting to reconcile a Europe divided over the war in Iraq.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with US President George W. Bush on Sunday in the two leaders’ first meeting since the start of the war that France, Germany and Russia so fiercely opposed.

“Despite the fact that we had differences of opinion over Iraq, Germany and Europe will support close ties with the United States as a friend and a partner,” Schroeder said.

“Openly discussing differences is a sign of partnership,” he added.

While conciliatory gestures have been clear between Washington and Moscow, and to some extent with Paris, ties with Berlin remain visibly strained.

“The relationship between Mr Bush and Mr Schroeder will never again be as it was and as it should be,” US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with Germany’s Focus magazine last week.

US officials said Bush will not hold bilateral talks with Schroeder at the Saint Petersburg summit or at a Group of Eight summit in Evian, France next week.

Many of the dozens of world leaders descending upon Saint Petersburg this weekend are meeting for the first time since the Iraq war — including the 15 EU leaders, who will be joined by Putin and leaders of the 10 mainly Eastern European countries joining the bloc from next year.

Aside from being a symbolic reconciliation summit, the EU-Russia talks are due to touch on a host of sticky issues.

“The EU enlargement signals the opening of a new chapter in European integration, pushing the EU eastward and expanding the common borders and common interests of Russia and the EU,” European Commission President Romano Prodi and Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis said in a comment contributed to Russian media on Friday.

Yet with the EU’s borders creeping ever closer to Russia, migration and visa policy have become sore issues.

Putin is expected to ask EU leaders to lower barriers to travel between Russia and Europe, but EU officials have said the process will be “long and complex,” with EU concerns over Russian migration policy and illegal immigration.

Prodi and Simitis acknowledged that enlargement “does of course also bring with it challenges for the EU and Russia,” pointing to “particular challenges faced by border regions.”

They also said that “the EU is confident that Russia will ratify the Kyoto Protocol in the coming months,” but Moscow has given no sign yet that it plans to ratify the treaty cutting carbon monoxide emissions.

Prodi and Simitis, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said the talks were also due to focus on trade, with the EU eyeing Russia’s vast energy resources and lowering barriers to economic cooperation.—AFP