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Putin Arrives for Milan Talks
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Milan, Italy's economic capital, Tuesday for talks with business leaders and local politicians after an official visit to Rome and the Vatican, airport officials said.
Putin was to meet with the bosses of the Eni petrol company and the car manufacturer Fiat, among others, and visit artistic highlights of the Lombard city, including the cathedral and Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper.
He was to leave Milan for Moscow Tuesday evening.
Putin, praising the "very high" level of Italo-Russian relations in Rome, earlier invited Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Prime Minister Giuliano Amato to visit Russia, he told the press before leaving Rome.
After talks with Amato on Monday, Putin had called on the European Union and NATO to join forces with Moscow and set up a joint anti-missile shield.
Earlier Tuesday, Putin also unveiled a statue of poet Alexander Pushkin in the park of Rome's Villa Borghese.
He hailed Pushkin, who was born 201 years ago and died in a duel at the age of 38, as "the most visible propagandist of Italian culture" in early 19th-century Russia and the author "who opened the doors to Italian culture" for the Russian people.
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