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Saturday, June, 16, 2001. Read photo caption
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Bush flies home with mixed results from European tour

LJUBLJANA, June 17 (AFP) -
US President George W. Bush wrapped up a five-nation European tour and flew home to Washington Sunday after a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladmir Putin that was -- rather like the trip itself -- full of bonhomie but somewhat lacking in tangible results.

Making his debut on the transatlantic stage, Bush visited Spain, Brussels, Gothenburg, Warsaw and the ex-Yugoslav republic of Slovenia during his first official trip to Europe, which the White House hoped would boost his profile as an internationalist.

Attending his first NATO summit in Bruseels on Wednesday, Bush claimed he was making headway in winning sceptical allies round to controversial US stances on missile defence and the expansion of the alliance further into eastern Europe.

Yet scepticism -- and not only from allies -- was just as evident by the end of the week when Putin warned his American counterpart, amid much backslapping, that Washington could not got it alone in building a missile defence system.

Bush acknowledged concerns among European allies, particularly that such missile defences would spell the end of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic MissileTreaty between Washington and Moscow -- the linchpin of global arms control.

But at a press conference in Brussels, he insisted that they were coming around to the need to "think different" about post-Cold War security threats such as missile proliferation among so-called "rogue states".

"I'm making good progress on this issue here in Europe," he said.

In Gothenburg, Sweden, on Thursday, Bush went to grreat lengths to pronounce the Transatlantic bond strong and full of promise said that as old friends Europe and the United States could address new differences in a spirit of candor and common purpose.

But ecologically-minded EU leaders were particularly candid in their criticism of Bush for backtracking on the Kyoto Accord, and the two sides made no effort to disguise a stark disagreement on environmental protection.

"I guess my summary is that friends are able to speak candidly and constructively," the US president told reporters bravely after his maiden EU summit.

Meanwhile, in downtown Gothenburg, police detained 243 people and clashed sporadically with scores of young stone-throwing demonstrators, as anti-globalisation protest emerged as a key theme of Bush's European tour.

As anticipated, it was on the issue of global warming and the international agreement known as the Kyoto Protocol to address the phenomenon where both the United States and the European Union admitted they still disagreed and had made no substantial headway in overcoming their differences.

"We agreed to disagree about substance" on Kyoto, Persson said.

Bush announced in March that the United States viewed the Kyoto process as too flawed and was dropping out of it. On Monday, he proposed a US "alternative" focusing on continued climate research which many environmental experts dismissed as almost useless.

"I understand the concerns of people in Europe" about global warming, Bush said. "People in our nation care about global warming and greenhouse emissions as well."

But he added: "We didn't feel like the Kyoto Treaty was well-balanced."

In Warsaw on Friday, Bush returned to the subject of NATO enlargement, which he said rthe United States was ready to support ahead of a key meeting in Prague next year.

At the 2002 summit of NATO leaders "the United States will be prepared to make concrete, historic decisions, with its Allies, to advance NATO enlargement," Bush said in a keynote foreign policy speech.

Nine ex-communist states hope for invitations to join the security alliance, and Bush said the organization should be open to all European democracies "ready to share the responsibilities" of membership.

"All of Europe's new democracies, from the Baltic to the Black Sea and all that lie between, should have the same chance for security and freedom -- and the same chance to join the institutions of Europe -- as Europe's old democracies have," said Bush.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania are official candidates for NATO membership, with Croatia also now seen as a potential member, though not as early as next year.

But the issue sparked controversy during Bush's meeting with Putin on Saturday when the Russian leader said it was impossible for his compatriots to forget that the organisation encroaching on their borders was a militarry one formed over half a century ago to contain the Soviet threat.