HEILIGENDAMM (Germany), June 5: US President George Bush on Tuesday criticised Russia on democracy, but sought to calm President Vladimir Putin’s anger over US missile shield plans on the eve of a G8 summit in Germany.
Speaking in Prague before heading to the Baltic coast resort of Heiligendamm for the meeting of major powers, Mr Bush said President Putin had nothing to fear from the shield, calling it a `purely defensive’ measure.
“Russia is not our enemy,” Mr Bush said after meeting Czech leaders on a visit aimed at highlighting the country’s emergence from Soviet domination.
He said he would urge Mr Putin at the summit to cooperate with the U.S. plan to deploy a radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland, but later in a speech took a dig at Moscow’s record on democracy.
“In Russia reforms that once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development,” Mr Bush said.
His comments are part of an escalating war of words between the former Cold War rivals which the German hosts fear could overshadow the June 6-8 summit of the Group of Eight -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.Mr Putin has said if Washington pushes ahead with its plans to deploy the missile system, Russia will revert to targeting its missiles on Europe as it did during the Cold War.
The two powers are also at odds on the fate of breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, with Washington backing independence and Moscow supporting Belgrade's efforts to prevent autonomy at all costs.
MOVEMENT ON CLIMATE: On global warming, another contentious issue where the Europeans have clashed frequently with Washington, it appeared leaders would make progress on goals to negotiate a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, which Washington shunned in 2001.
New climate change proposals from Mr Bush last week had sowed fears in Europe that Washington would go outside the well-established United Nations process to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
But James Connaughton, a senior climate adviser to Mr Bush, said in Berlin he was confident major powers could agree how to create a new framework for combating global warming after 2012, when the first period of Kyoto expires.
“It was never anyone's intention to have a separate process. The US is a party to the UN's framework convention on climate change. That is the forum where we would take action together on climate change,” Connaughton said.
A German official told reporters in Berlin after a meeting of `sherpas’ -- the chief negotiators from G8 countries -- that it was possible to combine Mr Bush's plan with the UN track.
But he said there had been no agreement on specific climate change goals, including Ms Merkel’s call for a goal of reducing global CO2 emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.
Informal meetings of the world’s top industrial powers date back to 1975, when the G6 gathered in Rambouillet, France, to coordinate economic policy following a global oil crisis and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates.—Reuters