Kremlin: Expect to make plan for future US-Russia relations as both leaders prepare to leave office.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFjp.services2(photo credit: )
Moscow expects a weekend meeting between the Russian and US presidents will produce a document setting out a "strategic framework" for relations as both leaders prepare to leave office, a Kremlin spokesman said Tuesday.
Officials on both sides are working on the document and Russia is confident it will adopted when Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush meet Sunday in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Dmitry Peskov told The Associated Press.
"We proceed from the assumption that we will succeed in completing the work and that it will be adopted in some form in Sochi," Peskov said.
He said the document would set out a "strategic vision of the future" of ties between Russia and the United States, which have been seriously strained during the Bush and Putin presidencies despite what both say are warm personal relations.
The document is meant to be a blueprint for cooperation that Bush and Putin, who both leave office within a year, can bequeath to their successors. Peskov called it a "strategic framework" and said it would touch on all the main issues in bilateral relations and the international agenda.
He said it would also address the sore points in relations, but gave no indication of whether the Kremlin expects breakthroughs on any issues, or more of a road map to ease tension and point the way to agreement.
Relations have been marred by disputes over a welter of issues ranging from US plans for missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe to accusations of democratic backsliding in Russia, and Putin's fiery criticism of US foreign policy.
The state-run RIA-Novosti news agency quoted an unidentified Kremlin official as saying the document for Sochi would address missile defense, but there was no indication of whether agreement was expected.
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