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Bush Looking Forward to Meeting Putin: Top Aide
US President George W. Bush is looking forward to meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin face to face next week in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, a top aide of Bush said Wednesday.
Briefing reporters on Bush's trip to Europe, Condoleezza Rice, the Assistant to U.S. President for National Security Affairs, said the first meeting between Bush and Putin is planned for a little over two hours.
The meeting will give an opportunity to the U.S. president "to discuss with President Putin his vision for security in the 21st century and to explain to President Putin his desire to build a positive and constructive relationship with Russia," Rice said.
"We have a lot of work to do with the Russians, and the president is eager to begin it with President Putin," she said.
"In addition to presenting his view on the nature of the relationship and its very important security component, that is, to talk about the new security framework, the president really wants to talk more broadly about the U.S.-Russian relationship," she said.
These include "areas of cooperation; regional areas in which we are already cooperating, like Nagorno-Karabakh; economic cooperation, and as well, areas with which we have differences with the Russians on proliferation, on Chechnya, on media freedoms in Russia," she added.
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