President Vladimir Putin, sounding an optimistic note on the eve of his first summit with President Bush in the United States, said there has been "movement toward a compromise" linking significant cuts in the two countries' nuclear arsenals with changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Without specifying the terms of an agreement, Putin indicated he was prepared to change certain aspects of the treaty to allow the Bush administration to proceed with testing for a missile defense system. But he said the United States has yet to present him with specific proposals.
Even so, he said, "I'm very optimistic." Linking arms cuts to a modified ABM Treaty, he added, "is the correct approach."
Looking ahead toward a strategic arms deal that seemed a remote possibility only a few months ago, Putin said he had not changed his view of the ABM Treaty as a "cornerstone of international security." But, he added, Russia has also come "to recognize the justified concerns of the United States."
One day before flying to Washington for the summit, Putin commented on the treaty during a wide-ranging interview at the Kremlin with The Washington Post and 10 other U.S. news organizations. For more than two hours, Putin also discussed such topics as the lessons of the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the risk of Russia's overdependence on oil revenue. But he repeatedly returned to his central theme since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States -- that it is time for Russia to end its isolation from the West and become a "full-fledged member of the international community."
Putin denied that he expects "transient benefits" or concessions from the United States in exchange for Russia's cooperation. He again strongly backed the U.S.-led strikes against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, adding, "Terrorism must be eradicated, expunged, eliminated, and not just in Afghanistan but throughout the world."
Putin outlined several goals of his shift toward the West, including a relationship with NATO that would give Russia the chance to participate in the alliance's decision-making process. The current Russian relationship with NATO, he said, is based on an outdated joint permanent council, set up in 1997, that should be replaced.
"Today that body is insufficient to improve the quality of our relationship," Putin said, insisting that from now on Russia could promise to be "effective and energetic" in assisting NATO only if given a say in decisions before they were made. Russia is prepared to reconsider its previous opposition to NATO expansion to include the three former Soviet Baltic states, he added, but only if that, too, is linked to a significant improvement in Russia's relationship with NATO.
The key, he said, is "to look beyond the old Cold War cliches and adopt a new world outlook."
Even as he turns toward the West, Putin refused to renounce Russia's extensive dealings with several countries that the United States has condemned for seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction, including North Korea and Iraq.
As for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Putin touted the "very valuable intelligence information" that Russia has contributed, along with "tens of millions of dollars" in weapons he said Russia has supplied to the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban.
Referring to the Northern Alliance's capture of the key northern city of Mazar-e Sharif on Friday, Putin said, "The situation in Afghanistan has been developing as we expected. The Northern Alliance has launched the operations it was planning, and is now effectively taking the entire northern part of Afghanistan under control."
Commenting on accused terrorist Osama bin Laden's reported statement that he has weapons of mass destruction, Putin struck a cautious note. "I don't think we should exaggerate the existing danger. . . . At the same time it would be a mistake to understate the scope of the risk," he said, citing what he said were bin Laden's close ties to radical groups in Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons.
Putin also categorically denied that terrorists could obtain nuclear weapons originating in Russia or the former Soviet Union. "It's unlikely that the terrorists in Afghanistan have weapons of mass destruction," he said. "In any case, they can't be of Soviet or Russian origin, I'm absolutely sure of that."
Putin also argued that Russia's war against Islamic rebels in the breakaway republic of Chechnya is an important front in the war against international terrorism. He claimed that if the Russians were not fighting there, more radical Islamic "mercenaries" would head to Afghanistan to fight the Americans. Putin said more than 500 such "mercenaries" had been killed in Chechnya and that his intelligence data indicated that between 500 and 700 "Islamic terrorists" are fighting in the region.
Putin is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Monday. He plans to meet with Bush there at at the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex.