Bush faces heat at G8 summit

UNITED STATES President George W Bush left for Europe and the G8 summit yesterday, facing a growing rift with his Russian counterpart and searching questions over his new initiative on climate change.

As well as the gathering of leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nation in Germany, Bush has stops planned in the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Italy.

The summit has been partly overshadowed by an increasingly bitter row with Russia over US plans to deploy elements of a missile defence shield in Central Europe.

Bush continues to call Vladimir Putin a "friend", despite the Russian president's harsh verbal attacks against US "imperialism" and warnings that Washington is instigating a fresh arms race.

Putin stepped up the Cold War-style rhetoric last Sunday, threatening to point Russian missiles at European targets if the US expands its nuclear defences near its borders.

In recent days, Bush has recognised disagreements with Moscow and raised questions about the state of democracy in Russia. But he repeated that "the Cold War is over", and the bilateral relationship was "firm" and based on "respect".

Bush will hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the G8 summit with Putin, as well as staunch ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and new French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

It will probably be the last encounter between Bush and Blair, who is about to leave office.

But it will be the first meeting with Sarkozy since he succeeded Jacques Chirac, with whom Bush had a chilly relationship over France's opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Climate change will be high on the G8 agenda, and Bush's 11th-hour initiative unveiled last week looks set to raise the temperature on the debate over how best to keep the planet from overheating.

Analysts point out that Bush is mindful of his legacy once he leaves office and has backtracked on some issues during recent months in a bid to accommodate his international partners.

They also point to a White House desire to show that the president still has a major global role to play through the end of his term in January 2009.

Bush and Putin are scheduled to follow up their G8 talks with a meeting next month at the Bush family residence in Kennebunkport, Maine, where the president is again expected to underline the US argument that extending the missile defence shield to Europe poses no threat to Russia.

But political analyst Simon Serfaty said Bush's pre-G8 stopovers in the Czech Republic and Poland — which would play host to the extended missile system — made Washington's default position very clear.

"The message is that we're going to do what we're going to do," Serfaty said.

The missile defence plan as well as US attempts to enlarge Nato have caused alarm.AFP