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CNN Saturday Morning News

Bush to Have First Meeting With Putin

Aired June 16, 2001 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with the final and perhaps the most critical stop on President Bush's trip to Europe. In about an hour, George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin are expected to meet for the first time at a castle in Slovenia.

The summit is a chance for President Bush to explain his missile defense plan to the skeptical Russian leader, and CNN's Major Garrett joins us now from Ljubljana, Slovenia, with the latest there.

Good morning, Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Brian.

The White House says the top agenda item for President Bush at this very first meeting with the Russian president is to establish trust and a strong personal rapport. President Bush and the first lady arrived exactly on time, exactly as scheduled, at the airport here in Ljubljana. As they came down the gangway from the Air Force One, they were met by the Slovenian president, Milan Kucan, and a military honor guard.

There's been a quite a good bit of preparation here in the Slovenian capital for this day first, an historic meeting between the two leaders. The location is a 16th century castle just outside of Ljubljana. It was once a summer retreat for communist dictator Josef Tito, but today it will be the location of the very first meeting between the two global powers.

And in it, the president will meet with Mr. Putin for about 40 minutes just face to face, just the two of them, and then they'll have an extended meeting where top advisers to both presidents will be involved.

In addition to establishing that strong personal rapport, missile defense is at the top of the agenda, and that will be an entirely different conversation than the one Mr. Putin had with the last U.S. president, former president Bill Clinton, whom he met with in June in Moscow of last year. Back then, Mr. Clinton was trying to see if he could persuade Mr. Putin to accept the United States doing some initial testing on a missile defense system, but all within the 1992 -- 1972, rather, antiballistic missile treaty.

They did not get very far in those negotiations. And today Mr. Bush will tell Mr. Putin all too clearly that he intends to test and develop and eventually deploy that missile defense system and try to persuade Mr. Putin who, as you said, is very skeptical, that it would be in the best interests of Russia to allow that to happen, to provide it and the rest of Europe some security from the accidental or intentional launch of ballistic missiles -- Brian.

NELSON: Major, the White House, specifically Condoleezza Rice have downplayed any breakthroughs from this meeting today between these two men. They characterize it as more like a get to know each other. Are you getting any change in that sense to this morning?

GARRETT: No. The White House has made it very clear, the president will lay no brand-new proposals on the table. Again, that first meeting, that private meeting, just the two of them, try to get a sense of each other. Mr. Bush said yesterday, "I don't know him, and he doesn't know me. But at the end of that meeting, I expect he'll have a sense of who I am, know that he can trust me," and that more expanded meeting involving other senior advisers, lots of issues will be discussed, missile defense, Russia's continued sales of military hardware to potential adversaries of the United States, that will be discussed.

Mr. Putin's commitment to democracy and to human rights within the Russian Federation, all those things will be discussed, but as far as breakthroughs, communiques, declarations of brand-new agenda or brand-new breakthroughs between the two countries, not at all.

It's worth pointing out that the two meet -- leaders will meet again just a month from now at the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy. White House says they'll continue the progress here at that meeting a month from now -- Brian.

NELSON: Thank you, Major. CNN's Major Garrett in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Thank you.

And Vladimir Putin has just arrived in Ljubljana as well for his summit with President Bush. It's a critical meeting, as we've said. And President Putin has been carefully preparing, including working on his English.

CNN's John King joins us on the phone now from Ljubljana with more on the details of the arrival of the Russian president and about this whole meeting.

John, good morning.

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Brian.

You see here -- I assume you got the pictures up here -- you can see the military honor guard greeting President Putin. President Bush received just the same treatment just a short time ago. Now Mr. Putin coming to this meeting to get to know the new U.S. president, just as Mr. Bush coming to get to know Mr. Putin.

Different perspectives from each side. Mr. Bush wants to feel out President Putin on the issue of missile defense, and as Major Garrett just noted, criticize Russia for continuing to sell some -- what the United States considers dangerous military technology to countries like Iran.

On the other hand, Mr. Putin still has a struggling economy back home in Russia. And this administration, the Bush administration, taking a much tougher line on the issue of International Monetary Fund or World Bank loans to Russia. The Bush team says billions have gone to Russia over the past decade, mostly in the Yeltsin years, but also now more recently in the Putin years, and the U.S. administration says it sees no results, or very little results, positive, and believes that much of that money has been wasted on corruption.

So we use the phrase in the United States quite a bit, all politics is local. Mr. Bush wants to talk about security issues like missile defense. Mr. Putin wants to get a sense of his economic assistance, what he can expect from the United States and the West.

Mr. Putin also quite nervous about two things Mr. Bush enthusiastically supports, expanding the NATO alliance and expanding the European Union to include countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. You'll remember Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO just two years ago. Now this country, what we're in today, Slovenia, Rumania, many other former Soviet satellite states on the list for entry either in NATO or the European Union or both.

That has Russia worried, if you use the language of the old days, Russia worried that the West, if you will, was moving ever closer to its borders.

NELSON: John, people wonder about the relationship between two leaders, any two leaders, and how important they are. In the case of Russia and the United States, they have often been important, particularly in the Clinton administration. Is it the sense there today that he -- the president has -- the two presidents have to hit it off if they're going to forge a relationship between the two countries from here on in?

KING: They certainly have to come to the basic level that they can trust each other. Mr. Bush said so himself yesterday, Brian, he said that right now he wanted to get to know this leader, take the measure of Mr. Putin, he said was his goal at this mini-summit, we would have to call it. There are only two hours of talks between the two leaders.

Mr. Bush said he hoped down the line to be able to call Mr. Putin a friend. He said he thought that was very important. He said that above all else, he wanted to convince the Russian president that he, as president, and that his administration representing the people of the United States in no way considered Russia to be the enemy, and indeed that he thought Russia should become a key player in European affairs.

Certainly, though, Mr. Putin skeptical about the missile defense plan, skeptical as he watches Mr. Putin recently trying to reinvigorate Russia's relations with China, U.S. relations with China have been at a low point of late. So a little global chess game, if you will. Certainly Russia not the military power it once was, but still Mr. Putin thinks sometimes he doesn't get the respect this country deserves from the United States and from the West.

That's one of the things, remember, in the campaign, Mr. Bush said if elected, he would be much more humble as president of the United States. That standpoint heading into these talks could be helpful in the sense of trying to develop a personal rapport with this Russian leader despite the very significant and very many policy differences between them.

NELSON: Thanks very much, John. We'll be back to you as these meetings get under way in Ljubljana. That is CNN's John King in Ljubljana, and you're looking at pictures of Russian President Putin.

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