Apr 5, 2008 5:50 pm US/Central
Bush, Putin Unlikely To Reach Missile Agreement
SOCHI, Russia (AP) ―
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin opened suspenseful farewell talks Saturday as the White House dropped hopes they would resolve differences on U.S. missile defense plans, one of the most contentious issues in a long list of security disputes.
The president is meeting with Putin at the Russian leader's summer place in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, reports CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante.
They opened their meeting with a warm handshake and smiles at Putin's heavily wooded retreat where Bush was shown a tabletop display of the 2014 Winter Olympics that will be held in Sochi. "This is your yacht," he joked to Bush, pointing at a 3-inch white ship on a blue patch representing the water. Bush chuckled.
"This will be a chance to say I appreciate being able to work together, you know, and to be able to try to find some common interests in the waning days of his presidency," Mr. Bush said earlier this week.
Putin has made it very clear that he regards NATO's enlargement as a potential threat.
The Bush administration's plans to deploy a missile shield in Europe have also been a major source of friction between Washington and Moscow.
The White House says it does not expect President Bush's talks with his Russian counterpart to produce a deal on the missile defense system.
"We're going to have to do more work after Sochi," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters traveling with President Bush on Air Force One to Russia from Zagreb, Croatia, where the president celebrated the expansion of NATO into former communist territory.
"No one has said that everything would be finalized and everyone would be satisfied with all the preparations because we haven't even started to work on the technical aspects of the system," she said. "We're still in the early part of these discussions."
But, Perino added, "the dialogue is headed in the right direction and that this meeting will be able to push that along even further."
Though Russia vigorously opposes placing a missile defense system in its backyard, the concept won the full support of NATO leaders earlier this week at a summit in Bucharest, Romania, which Mr. Bush attended.
Perino said U.S. officials are working to convince Russia that it has little to fear from such a system.
"I think we have made great strides in bringing confidence to the Russians that this system is not aimed at Russia and Russia is not the enemy," she said. "You've heard the president say the Cold War is over, and if you look at what NATO just did this past week on missile defense people have come to the realization that together, working cooperatively, we can help deter or prevent an attack from a rogue nation in the Middle East, not from Russia."
Aside from the NATO endorsement, the anti-missile program also advanced with the Czech Republic's agreement to host a radar system that would track the sky for any threats. The White House has to complete a deal with Poland where 10 interceptor rockets would be based.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
