Analysis: Bush, Putin will focus on Iran

WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) -- The upcoming talks between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely center around issues of defense, specifically Iran, a top Kremlin aide said.

Speaking Thursday at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a Washington think tank, Igor Shuvalov, a top Putin aide and the principal representative of Russia to the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, said that the Russian public believed Putin was successful during the most recent G8 summit in Germany earlier this month.

Shuvalov called the talks "very successful for Russia and the president of Russia," he said.

"Putin would appear the winner because all the decisions were balanced and the Russian voice was heard."

Bush and Putin plan to hold their next meeting in July at Kennebunkport, Maine, to discuss the Russian president's proposal to offer radar data on Iranian missile launches to the United States from an old Soviet-era monitoring station in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.

The proposal came as a surprise to Western leaders after Putin's recent public comments calling the United States one of the world's most dangerous nations, as well as hinting that he would re-target Russian nuclear missiles toward Europe if the United States moved forward with a plan to deploy anti-ballistic missile interceptors in Poland and a radar monitoring base for them in the neighboring Czech Republic.

Shuvalov said Putin did not consult with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before making the Azerbaijani radar base proposal. However, the Russian president carefully considered his proposal before making it and even discussed it in advance with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the Kremlin aide said.

Putin did not want to send any wrong signals to the world on the Azerbaijan radar issue but wanted "to show that America and Russia are friends," Shuvalov said.

Shuvalov said he hoped the Putin-Bush meeting would be very successful. However, the two presidents were not expected to finalize any agreement when they meet in July, and it may take another several months and perhaps another round of talks before any agreement between them would be finalized, he cautioned.

When asked whether Russia would stop selling weapons to Iran and agree to enforce sanctions on Tehran, Shuvalov said current Russian policy considered non-proliferation and non-enrichment as ultimate goals. He said Russia was doing its best to comply with NATO and U.N. Security Council policy towards Iran.

"Russia does not want to impose sanctions for the sake of sanctions if they don't work, but wants to work through the U.N. Security Council," he said.

Shuvalov also discussed the upcoming Russian presidential elections to be held next year. Putin has said this year's G8 summit was the last he would attend as his country's leader and that he still was determined to step down after two full four-year terms in 2008. Therefore, a newly elected president of Russia will attend the next 2008 G8 summit in Japan.

Shuvalov said that it was still too early to predict who the next Russian president would be and that serious campaigning for the election would not commence until January.

"The next president of Russia will not be appointed, he will be elected, in a free democratic election. That is an integral part of Russian democratic systems," Shuvalov said. "President Putin will use his right to determine his preference and to advocate for that preference, but the people will decide in accordance with our laws."

Shuvalov denied Putin would change the constitution in order to stay in power, despite a growing number of calls from Russians for him to do so.

"We always hear from him, even internally, he will definitely leave," the Kremlin official said.

Ultimately Russia would be proven to be a real democracy when Putin leaves office without changing the constitution, Shuvalov said. He said the Russian president remained convinced that his main job was to protect the constitution created by President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.