U.S. President George W. Bush will discuss with President Vladimir Putin Russian contributions to Iran's nuclear-power program during this week's summit in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Reuters reported on 20 May. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told journalists that Bush "intends to talk a lot about the Russian-Iranian relationship." "It has been a problem for several years," Rice said. "We've made a lot of progress with the Russians on the counterterrorism front. We're going to try and make progress on the nonproliferation front."

...while Russia to demand role in Central Asian Security

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned on 21 May that Russia "will demand from the United States transparency in the transportation and presence of a foreign military contingent in Central Asia," ITAR-TASS reported.

Ivanov applauded U.S.-Russian cooperation in the fight against international terrorism and said that "we have almost done away with the threat to Russia and other CIS member countries through the defeat of terrorists on the territory of Afghanistan." However, he called for multilateral mechanisms for ensuring security in Central Asia, citing recent efforts to beef up the Collective Security Treaty (DKB). "We intend to use at maximum the promising mechanism of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," Ivanov said, according to the news agency.

(RFE/RL 21.v.02)