"This will avoid creating problems linked to an imbalance in the equilibrium of forces and ensure 100 percent the security of all European countries, with the obvious involvement of our American partners," Putin told a press conference.

"We have asked the Italian government to think about Russia's proposal" and discuss it with its European collegues, he added.

"We know that many in Europe are concerned about their security and what will happen to the 1972 ABM (anti-ballistic missile) treaty. We share the same view," Putin said.

The Russian leader and US President Bill Clinton failed to agree on US plans for an anti-missile shield, to protect it from nuclear-capable "rogue states", at a weekend summit in Moscow.

Moscow said the US shield would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of strategic arms control accords.

Putin, who thanked European leaders for their support in favor of the treaty, said international security issues ranked high during the Rome meeting which lasted more than two hours.

"Italy and Russia share many views," Amato said during the joint press conference which was attended by foreign ministers Ivan Ivanov of Russia and Italy's Lamberto Dini, as well as Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov.

"But where there is no full convergence, there is still a huge possibility for mutual understanding," he added.

Both leaders noted that Putin's visit was the first to the West since the president was inaugurated on May 7. Putin visited London for talks with British leaders in April after his election in March but before the inauguration.

Amato said Putin's choice to visit Italy first was "no accident".

"I think that we can do a useful job together for the benefit of international relations," he said.

During Putin's visit both countries signed a tourist agreement and a protocol on technical cooperation covering the years 2000 and 2001.

No mention was made during the press conference of the conflict in Chechnya and allegations of human rights violations by Russian forces in the breakaway republic.

Some 20 demonstrators protested against the Russian crackdown on separatist rebels outside Amato's offices at Palazzo Chigi where the meeting between the two leaders took place.

The parliamentary assembly of the Strasbourg-based council suspended Moscow's voting rights in April because of the conflict.

Putin met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican after his talks with Amato but did not renew an invitation to the head of the Roman Catholic Church to visit Moscow. The invitation had been made by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin.

The encounter with the 80-year-old pope, dominated by disarmament issues and the international situation according to the Vatican, took on special significance after the head of Russia's Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexis II, in a significant shift in his position, did not rule out Sunday a meeting with the pope.

Alexis II had accused the Vatican earlier of seeking to win over Roman Catholic converts in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

A meeting with Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who hosted a dinner at the Quirinal palace, wound up Putin's first day in Italy.

On Tuesday, after the inauguration of a monument in memory of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, Putin will travel to Milan to meet, among others, bosses of the Eni petrol company and the car manufacturer Fiat, both of which have projects in Russia.

Meanwhile back in Moscow, Russian liberal opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky suggested Monday a way to solve Washington and Moscow's dispute over US plans for a nuclear missile shield, saying Europe and Russia should have one too.

"We are ready to recognise that the United States has a right to create a tactical anti-missile system to protect it from terrorist attacks," he said on NTV television.

"But the United States and NATO have to recognise that Russia and Europe need a similar system," added Yavlinsky, head of the Yabloko party.

"Russia must insist on the creation of a Russian-European anti-missile defence based on Russian military technology," the liberal politician said.

He admitted, however, that there were "difficulties in conducting such negotiations with the United States."

Moscow and Washington failed to bridge their divide over the US plans for a National Missile Defence (NMD) to protect itself from "rogue" states such as Iran and North Korea during a three-day US-Russia summit that ended Monday.

US President Bill Clinton is due this summer to decide on deployment of a 60-billion-dollar defence shield. That would breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the cornerstone of arms control accords, unless Russia agrees changes to allow a limited US system.

Copyright 2000 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

MILSPACE

A street vendor of souvenirs put matrioshka dolls with the faces of Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Bill Clinton on the best place of the table in the center of Moscow 01 June 2000. Clinton will start his visit to Moscow on June 03. Photo by Yuri Kochetkov - Copyright AFP 2000

Pentagon Floats ABM Tech Deal With Russia
by Jim Mannion
Washington (AFP) June 1, 2000 - The United States has proposed cooperation with Russia on theater missile defenses and early warning systems, senior US defense officials said Thursday, leaving open the possibility that it will also offer to share national missile defense technology with Moscow.