Bush, Putin to Meet in Slovenia in June

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin will hold their first summit next month, meeting in Slovenia to sort through issues ranging from deep differences over a U.S. missile defense plan to common interest in Middle East peace, the White House announced Friday.

The summit will cap Bush’s third and most challenging foreign trip and will follow talks in Brussels with NATO leaders and meetings in Sweden with European Union heads of state. The goal of the U.S.-Russia leg of the five-nation European swing will be to “build a strong, positive relationship and work together toward common goals,” according to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

For the first time, the Bush administration indicated Friday that it plans to stand firm on the development of a missile defense shield, announcing that consultations between the United States and other nations about the plan will not be open-ended.

“Consultations can’t be a substitute for action. So we will take the necessary time to get the views of all who have an interest in this matter and factor those views into our consideration,” Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov.

“At the time, when we think there has been enough consultation and we’ve reached agreements with others, then we will act on those agreements or act on what we believe are our best interests at that time.”

Russia and China have expressed the deepest objections to the administration’s plans to create a shield to protect the U.S. against nuclear missiles, a proposal that would mean abandoning the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. It also could unravel a series of disarmament agreements that have provided strategic stability for half a century and might even trigger a new arms race, foreign and domestic critics of the plan maintain.

Putin has repeatedly insisted on sticking to the ABM treaty.

The depth of differences was clear after a day of intensive talks in Washington on Friday between the Bush administration and Ivanov to try to smooth out relations strained in part by U.S. accusations that senior FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen had spied for Moscow.

After talks earlier in the day with Bush, Ivanov told reporters: “There can be no breakthrough on missile defense. There can only be lengthy consultations. This is not a question to be resolved in a single day.”

He added that Bush hoped to find a solution “without damaging anyone’s interests. This coincides fully with Russia’s position. The main thing is to listen to one another.”

Ivanov later told the State Department news conference that Russia accepts the U.S. premise that the world--and the threats to international order--had changed significantly in the past 30 years. But he said the missile defense issue needed a “most careful and detailed review.”

Russia instead proposed Friday that the two nations establish two working groups to carry on consultations. One group would define current and future threats to international stability, and the second would examine the role and effectiveness of current arms treaties.

Moscow continues to push, so far unsuccessfully, for a joint strategy that would preempt the unilateral tone of the U.S. missile defense scheme.

Ivanov also indicated that Russia has not bought into a plan for streamlining tough U.N. sanctions against Iraq. Britain has been quietly circulating a new U.S.-backed resolution at the United Nations to overhaul the restrictions on the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Russia and the United States have a “common understanding of the goal,” which centers on “lightening the burden” on the Iraqi people, but Russia has its own proposals, Ivanov said.

U.S. officials also pressed Ivanov on the case of John Edward Tobin, a 24-year-old Fulbright scholar who was convicted by a Russian court last month of possessing and distributing marijuana, for which he was sentenced to three years and one month in prison. Ivanov promised to convey U.S. concerns about the case to judicial authorities.

Tobin’s appeal will be heard May 25, the Interfax news agency reported Friday. He was doing research at Voronezh State University when he was arrested outside a local nightclub in January.

Despite ongoing differences, the Putin government gives high priority to developing a constructive and pragmatic relationship with the Bush administration, Ivanov told the news conference.

He said he expected the Slovenia summit to be “lively” and “full of content” on specific issues. Powell told reporters he believes that the summit will open the way for a “frank and direct relationship” between the leaders of two nations that had vied for global influence for most of the 20th century.