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Putin's quickfire Paris excursion testifies to closer ties
January 15, 2002
AFP

President Vladimir Putin makes a lightning visit to Paris Tuesday, seen as confirming a new warmth in relations between the two countries and Moscow's increasingly pro-Western slant.

Decided almost on the spur of the moment, Putin's trip follows an official visit to Moscow by French President Jacques Chirac last July and a visit here by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin three months later.

The Paris trip, squeezed in between a visit by Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to Moscow and a visit by Putin to Warsaw, emerged from a telephone conversation with Chirac just a few days ago, Russian sources said.

Such a swift response to the invitation to visit is unprecedented by any Kremlin leader, though Putin has shown himself increasingly partial to informal contacts with European leaders, notably with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on December 9 and with British Prime Minister Tony Blair two weeks later.

Chirac and Putin will meet at the Elysee Palace in the afternoon before holding a joint press conference and a working dinner with the French and Russian Foreign Ministers, Hubert Vedrine and Igor Ivanov.

After spending only a few hours in Paris, the Russian leader will fly out for a two-day official visit to Poland.

Putin and Chirac held two telephone conversations during the last days of 2001, mainly dealing with the Middle East and with the mounting tension between India and Pakistan.

On January 4, at the annual New Year ceremony for the diplomatic corps at the Elysee Palace, Chirac expressed the wish that "Moscow's strategic choice" -- implicitly, its rapprochement with the West -- receive "an open response," particularly from NATO and the European Union.

During the international anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan, Russia allowed French warplanes, along with those of other members of the anti-terrorist alliance, to overfly its territory.

Moscow also gave tacit approval for French troops to be stationed in Tajikistan, where they are based at Dushanbe airport, and in Uzbekistan, where it leant on local authorities to allow through a group of French soldiers to Afghanistan.

The two leaders are expected to focus on international security at their talks Tuesday, with particular reference to the threat of a conflict between India and Pakistan, both equipped with nuclear weapons.

Russia, by far the largest supplier of weapons to India, is well placed to bring influence to bear on New Delhi, officials in Moscow said.

Diplomatic sources fear however that the Indian government under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee might seek to internationalise the conflict over Kashmir under cover of the international campaign against terrorism.

Putin and Chirac were expected also to discuss the commercial aviation sector, in which the US company Boeing and the European Airbus are in strenuous competition for contracts to renew Russia's ageing fleet.

Russia's trade exchanges are significantly greater with the European Union (40 percent of the total) than with the United States (less than 10 percent), and Russian contracts would provide a massive boost to the European aeronautics industry.

However not everyone is happy about Putin's Paris trip.

France's Green party candidate for president, Noel Mamere, denounced the visit which he said came at a time when "death squads" are at work in Chechnya.

In a statement on Monday, Mamere said he regretted that Chirac was ready to receive Putin with great ceremony when "the real terrorism is the war that Moscow is leading in Chechnya.

The Green party, part of the governing coalition, said Mamere will take part in a demonstration against Putin's visit with the French Chechnya Committee on Tuesday.