Putin, Bush Could Meet Before G-8 SummitA meeting between the Russian and U.S. presidents could take place before their encounter at the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Genoa, Italy, in late July, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Saturday.Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush are scheduled to meet at the G-8 summit but an earlier meeting "could take place if the circumstances allowed," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. "It is premature to speak concretely about this at the moment, but it cannot be ruled out," Ivanov said without elaborating. On Friday the U.S. ambassador to Moscow John Collins said a pre-Genoa meeting between the two presidents was "possible and is being studied." The prospects for such a meeting could be discussed when Ivanov meets U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on May 18 in Washington, Collins said. Ivanov and Powell discussed the possibility of a Putin-Bush meeting prior to the Genoa summit at a meeting in Paris earlier this month. On a recent statement by Powell that he might introduce a visa-free regime for Russians wishing to travel to the United States, Ivanov said he had not received any official U.S. proposals on the subject. Russia-U.S. relations have got off to a cool start since the change of U.S. administration in January, with the White House apparently having decided to downgrade its relations with Moscow. |
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