Financial Times - 10.22.2002

 

The Financial Times

Bush Likely to Visit Russia Next Month

By Robert Cottrell 

MOSCOW - President George W. Bush is likely to visit Russia next month, after attending the NATO summit in Prague, a U.S. diplomat told the Financial Times on Tuesday.

The main purpose of the trip would be to reassure Russia once again that NATO enlargement, the subject of the Prague summit, is not directed against Russia.

But it would also be a chance for Mr. Bush to seek further Russian co-operation on strategic issues including Iraq and North Korea.

These two issues will also dominate a meeting between Mr. Bush and President Vladimir Putin in the margins of an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Mexico on Saturday, but this meeting will be brief, officials say.

The U.S. sees Russia as a valuable intermediary in dealing with North Korea, which recently admitted to having a nuclear fuel enrichment programme.

Mr. Putin appeared to have a good personal relationship with the reclusive North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, following two visits to Russia by Mr. Kim in the past 15 months.

The US and Russia have "an opportunity to co-operate against a major strategic threat" in the form of North Korea's nuclear programme, the U.S. diplomat said.

The U.S. wants international efforts to stop North Korea getting any more external help for its nuclear programme. It stops short of saying that Russian companies may have been quietly or illicitly selling technology to North Korea, but it appears to have some suspicions in this direction.