In a March 26 interview at the White House with foreign journalists, U.S. President George W. Bush said he had accepted an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss bilateral issues at Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi on April 6. Remarking that "It's important that we have good relations with Russia," Bush characterized the summit as "a follow-up" to the March 17-18 meeting between senior U.S. and Russian national security officials in Moscow. That "2+2" meeting -- which included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the American side, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov of Russia -- made some progress in overcoming the serious disagreements that have arisen between Moscow and Washington in recent years. Nevertheless, the two sides remain divided over American plans to deploy ballistic missile defenses (BMD) in Poland and the Czech Republic. These systems are meant to supplement the two already operational U.S. national missile defense sites at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and Fort Greeley, Alaska. "The best way to address our concerns, of course, will be not to set up this third positioning site at all," Lavrov observed at their joint press conference. But he called the new confidence-building measures put forward by Rice and Gates "important and useful" steps in meeting Russian security concerns about the placement of the BMD systems so close to Russian territory. Lavrov added, however, that the Kremlin would wait to evaluate the formal written offers Washington would submit following the meeting before offering an official response.
BMD: Limited Progress at Moscow Meeting Prompts Putin Invitation to Bush
