Putin in Britain to talk Iraq and money

Britain laid on a sumptuous royal welcome yesterday for the first Russian state visit since 1874, with President Vladimir Putin hoping to mend fences and win business now the Iraq war is over.

President Putin will meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair privately for only half an hour during his four-day visit to London and Edinburgh, but the two men will have other opportunities to chat at royal ceremonies and an energy conference.

The president's visit may bring finalisation of a $6.75 billion deal, in which oil company BP would buy a 50 per cent stake in TNK, Russia's third largest oil company.

Human rights groups are also urging Mr Blair to turn up the heat on President Putin over his war against Chechen rebels.

In the first state visit by a Russian head of state since Tsar Alexander II sailed to Britain 129 years ago, President Putin flew into London's Heathrow airport where he was met by heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.

President Putin was then driven to central London for a formal ceremonial welcome by Queen Elizabeth and a guard of honour.

The Russian President laid a wreath outside the Imperial War Museum in south London in honour of some 27 million Soviet war dead from World War Two.

He will stay at Buckingham Palace during his visit, dine with the Queen, visit the tomb of the unknown warrior, talk to Mr Blair, go to Scotland, open an energy conference and meet British businessmen.

But President Putin, popular at home and up for re-election next March, faces international condemnation for his clampdown on breakaway Chechnya and nuclear cooperation with Iran.

He risks more criticism for his closure at the weekend of Russia's last independent television station.

Russian newspapers underscored the former KGB spy's need to rebuild bridges with Britain and the United States.

Diplomats will be watching during the four-day visit to see if he soothes British pride after his taunting of Mr Blair in April over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"Relations between our two countries are excellent and continue to go from strength to strength," Mr Blair's spokesman insisted yesterday.

The issue is even more sensitive now for Mr Blair, as he faces a parliamentary inquiry and falling public credibility over allegations he hyped up evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons.

"We do not intend to put salt into wounds," one high-ranking Kremlin official said. "We have wounds of our own."

Blair, who received a bottle of vodka from Putin on his 50th birthday in May, was glowing about the Russian in public.

Calling Putin's visit "a remarkable event in the lives of our two countries", he told Russia's Itar-Tass news agency on Monday that the Russian leader "impressed me from the very beginning, and I regard him as a very strong politician who speaks plainly".

"In political matters, if differences arise we are able to deal with them and we work together closely," Blair said.