Russia to allow US weapon shipments to Afghanistan

[July 03, 2009]  MOSCOW (AP) -- A Kremlin aide says Russia will allow the U.S. to ship weapons across its territory to Afghanistan.

President Dmitry Medvedev's foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko said Medvedev and President Barack Obama are expected to sign a deal on the issue during their summit next week in Moscow.

Russia has been allowing the U.S. to ship non-lethal goods across its territory to help operations in Afghanistan. Prikhodko said the expected deal would enable the U.S. to ship lethal cargoes and would include shipments by air and land.

It is a significant good will gesture from the Kremlin before the summit, which both nations hope will put long-troubled ties back on track.

___

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE.
AP's earlier story is below.

___

MOSCOW (AP) -- President Barack Obama was wrong to suggest Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remains partially mired in a Cold War mindset and is sure to change his opinion when they meet next week in Moscow, Putin's spokesman said Friday.

Obama said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press that Putin needs to understand "that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction."

Obama said he believes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "understands that," but Putin "has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new."

Obama makes his first trip as U.S. president to Russia for talks on Monday and Tuesday.

His remarks suggested that he sees Putin as a potential obstacle to improving ties after years of increasing acrimony. Putin was a frequent critic of the U.S. during his eight years as Russia's president, before he became prime minister last year.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Obama was wrong about the premier. "Such a point of view has nothing to do with a true understanding of Putin," he told AP, and suggested the reason for Obama's view was simply that he "has not yet spoken with Putin -- they are not acquainted."

"By all appearances he does not have full information about (Putin's) views," Peskov said, adding that Obama's planned breakfast meeting with Putin on Tuesday should clear the air.

"I am convinced that after this meeting, the president (Obama) will change his point of view about (Putin)," he said.

Putin is still widely seen as more powerful than Medvedev, who was elected in March 2008 after Putin tapped him as his favored successor. Medvedev has used a softer tone than Putin and has spoken of the need to improve Russia's democracy and its justice system, raising U.S. hopes for a shift from the tight Kremlin control of the Putin era.

In the AP interview, Obama said "Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia," and that meeting with him as well as with the president "ensures that he and Medvedev are hearing the same things and seeing the same things so that they can move in concert in cooperating with us on some critical issues."

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.