MOSCOW, May 22: Russia and the United States finalized the text of their first disarmament treaty in a decade on Wednesday, slashing their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds, on the eve of US President George W. Bush’s arrival here.

Building anticipation before their summit meeting on Friday, Bush and President Vladimir Putin heaped warm praise on each other’s leadership and extolled the level of trust achieved since their first talks one year ago.

“I want the world to know that my friendship with President Putin is real. I like him. I trust him. We have good conversations,” Bush told Russian media ahead of his arrival on Thursday.

“This new relationship is very important. It is important for Russia, it is just as important for the United States,” said Bush.

Putin for his part said he and Bush were both ready to guide the two former Cold War adversaries into a 21st century partnership no matter how skeptically some in Moscow might still view Washington.

“Our cooperation within the frameworks of the anti-terror coalition has been completely justified,” Putin told a meeting of Russian regional leaders.

“In the past year, we have created an atmosphere of trust and a clear understanding that our nations are no longer enemies, and this has allowed us to reach an agreement on strategic weapons reductions,” Putin said.

Crowning the fifth Putin-Bush meeting will be a treaty that bumps down the ceiling on the number of nuclear warheads each side can keep on active duty by two thirds to between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next decade.

The agreement comes amid a wave of cooperation with Moscow that will also see Russia win an unprecedented voice within its Soviet-era foe NATO during a meeting of the Western alliance’s leaders in Rome next week.

In addition, a host of US officials have descended on the Russian capital to prepare a separate partnership declaration to be signed Friday that covers everything from trade to the war on terror.

Bush said he was keen to see Russia develop a competitive economy, stressing it was vital for Washington to view “a healthy Europe and a healthy Russia in our nation’s interests.”

Eyeing a battle from Communists and military conservatives, Moscow launched a quick campaign to win approval of the new arms treaty from parliament, noting the deal covered Moscow’s key demand for the cuts to be transparent and verifiable.

“Of course, we are also talking about the ability to verify the established agreements,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko. “This is a major contribution to increased global stability.”

The Communist Party and nationalist elements in the military have criticized the agreement as a fig leaf which offers both sides the option of stockpiling their decommissioned missiles for future deployment.

They say that this would leave Washington with an advantage because a large portion of Russia’s warheads will outlive their expiration date in the next few years anyway, and Moscow lacks the finances to replenish its arsenal.

And they point out that the United States is still free to build its controversial missile defense shield, which Russia fears could one day render its own nuclear arsenal useless.

The senior Russia diplomat said the new treaty “establishes a link between missile defense and strategic reduction” but does not specify what that connection actually is.

Russia had initially hoped that Washington would scrap the missile defense idea should Moscow accept a radical cuts in nuclear warheads. But the idea was flatly dismissed by the Bush administration.

Analysts of US-Russia relations meanwhile said that Putin and Bush have indeed managed to put their partnership on a firm footing as Soviet era issues like nuclear weapons and defense take a back seat to investment and trade.

“The relation with Russia is changing, and in the future it will have much less to do with disarmament and much more to do with the economy,” said Carnegie Moscow Center director Robert Nurick.

US needs allies, not vassals:

European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy on Wednesday acknowledged tensions in current EU-US relations and described the United States as a wounded animal under great stress.

Lamy told RTL radio that EU-US relations were “not comfortable” at the moment.

“The United States in this world needs allies not vassals,” Lamy said, adding that Europe’s role was to provide a degree of stability to the global political scene rather than to offer knee-jerk opposition to Washington.

He compared the United States to “a wounded elephant, threatened, in an election campaign ... a type of animal that is very very difficult at this time.”

The United States and the European Union are currently at bitter odds over two trade issues, with the EU in particular outraged by President George W. Bush’s decision to slap three-year tariffs of up to 30 percent on a range of steel imports.—AFP