Rice, Putin discuss common needs, prepare for Bush visit

MOSCOW -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian President Vladimir Putin praised their nations' cooperation on common worries, including terrorism and regional conflicts, in a meeting Wednesday.\nRice had mixed an unusually upbeat account of U.S.-Russian cooperation with muted criticism of the nation's democratic development in remarks before their discussion.\nPutin opened the meeting cordially, saying, "With your direct participation, our relations with the United States have reached the high level which they have today. And we hope that this course will continue."\nRice said she looked forward to a fruitful discussion "on various issues that are of interest to us: our common interest in regional stability, our common interest in the global war on terrorism, on economic development in the world."\nEarlier in an interview with the radio station Ekho Moskvy -- one of Russia's few remaining independent media voices -- Rice emphasized the two countries' cooperation.\n"We see Russia as a strategic partner in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons," she said. "We see Russia as a partner in solving regional issues, like the Balkans or the Middle East."\nShe also mentioned Russian efforts with the United States and other countries to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability.\n"Russia is not a strategic enemy," Rice said, suggesting the two countries have worked well together since the final years of communist rule.\nIn the interview, Rice made scant reference to U.S. concern about setbacks to Russia's democratic development. She only briefly mentioned the great concentration of power under the president and the need for a free media to help people together decide their fates.\nShe also did not mention other areas of tension. These include what U.S. officials perceive to be Russian inaction in curbing violations of American intellectual property rights, including videos and computer software. Washington also contends that Russia has a poor record on stemming human trafficking.\nRice said Russia should not consider the United States to be a threat, willing to exploit the shifts to democracy in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine. She said there was no reason why the United States and Russia cannot cooperate in their approach to these countries.\nDuring their meeting, Rice discussed with Putin the visit next month by President Bush to Russia for the 60th anniversary ceremonies commemorating the Allied victory in Europe, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.\nShe told Ekho Moskvy listeners that Washington was looking for agreement on improved access to nuclear installations by U.S. inspectors before the presidents' May meeting.\nShe said that she and Ivanov had discussed the issue over dinner Tuesday night, and that she had won assurances of some improved access. But Ivanov said that Moscow was not considering the possibility of visits by American inspectors, the Interfax news agency reported.\nIn her radio interview, Rice rejected the view that American attempts to monitor Russian nuclear sites were an intrusion on the country's sovereignty. Instead, she said she considered it an opportunity for cooperation between the two countries.\nRussia's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Yakovenko wrote in an article Wednesday in the government newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, that the U.S. and Russian governments were working to widen the areas of accord.\n"This is important against the background of mistrust of Russia, persisting among a definite part of the American political elite and of attempts to play under rules of former confrontation, when any success by one side was automatically regarded as a defeat of the other and vice versa," Yakovenko wrote.