World Leaders Gather for St. Petersburg Party

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, May 30, 2003

World Leaders Gather for St. Petersburg Party

World leaders gather in Russia on Friday to mark the 300th birthday of the old Czarist capital, a glittering occasion many hope will help dispel lingering rancor over the Iraq war.

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World leaders gather in Russia on Friday to mark the 300th birthday of the old Czarist capital, a glittering occasion many hope will help dispel lingering rancor over the Iraq war.

It will be the first time all the key players in the bitter debate over the U.S.-led Iraq invasion will be together since the war began in March.

The three-day celebrations in St. Petersburg comes just days before the world's seven largest industrial economies and Russia hold their annual G8 summit in France.

More than 40 leaders -- including most of the heads of former Soviet states -- will come to Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg, the largest crowd of dignitaries to visit Russia's "window on the West" since Czarist times.

Renamed Petrograd during World War One and called Leningrad in Soviet times, the city was planted on the watery wastelands of Russia's Baltic coast in 1703 by Czar Peter the Great, determined to wrench a reluctant population into modern Western ways.

After two days of banquets, fireworks and events to showcase the city's cultural heritage, Putin will hold private talks with Bush on Sunday morning. They then fly off for the Group of Eight summit in Evian, France.

All 15 leaders from the European Union will come, along with the 10 countries who will soon join, most of them once within the Soviet bloc.

On the sidelines, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will hold his first summit with new Chinese President Hu Jintao, a chance for the Asian neighbors to improve ties.

The talks could pave the way for a visit to China by Koizumi, put off since last year because of his visit to Japan's controversial war shrine, still viewed in China as a symbol of Japan's militarism in World War II.

Source: Agencies

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