Bush-Putin Row Grows As Pact Pushes East

George Bush and Vladimir Putin yesterday appeared to be on a collision course ahead of today's critical Nato summit in Bucharest, which could determine the future of the alliance and its relationship with Russia.

In a visit loaded with symbolism, President Bush traveled to Kiev yesterday to declare "strong support" for Ukraine's membership of Nato, in defiance of Moscow which adamantly opposes the alliance's eastwards expansion.

"Helping Ukraine move toward Nato membership is in the interest of every member in the alliance and will help advance security and freedom in this region and around the world," Bush said.

He also backed Nato accession for Georgia and said Russia could not exercise a veto over the Atlantic alliance's membership. The blunt declaration does not bode well for a Nato-Russian meeting on Friday, at the end of the Bucharest summit and a bilateral meeting between Bush and Putin two days later at Sochi, on the Black Sea.

It is likely to be the last meeting between the two before Putin leaves office on May 7, and it is burdened with sharp disagreements over Nato expansion, US missile defence plans, and strategy towards Iran.

The Nato enlargement issue will come to a head first as Nato leaders decide on new members. Bush faces stiff opposition not just from Russia but from within the alliance. Both Germany and France oppose membership for the former Soviet Republics, arguing that neither Georgia nor Ukraine are ready and enlargement would further worsen European relations with Russia.

A single veto will be enough to block Nato offering the two aspiring members a Membership Action Plan (MAP) setting out a list of targets that countries have to meet in order to join, but Bush, speaking in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, after a meeting with President Viktor Yushchenko, said he had not given up hope of winning the argument at the Bucharest summit.

"I wouldn't prejudge the outcome yet," the US president said.

The Nato summit will also vote on offering membership plans to Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, although that too will not be straightforward. Greece is opposing Macedonian membership until the country changes its name, which Athens argues implies territorial claims on the Greek region of Macedonia. British and US officials predict, however, that those objections can be overcome.

As well as debating enlargement Nato will debate its faltering mission in Afghanistan, which has opened rifts in the alliance over troop contributions and strategy. France is likely to offer about 1,000 more troops but analysts argue that will have more symbolic than strategic value.

At center-stage in Sochi will be Bush's plans to place part of the US anti-missile shield in central Europe, despite vehement opposition from Moscow, which dismisses US assurances the system is aimed at Iranian missile attacks and views it as a bid to blunt Russian's nuclear deterrent.

Bush yesterday denied he is ready to trade his support for Ukraine and Georgia for a deal with Russia on missile defence.

Bush said: "I strongly believe that Ukraine and Georgia should be given MAP and there's no trade-offs. Period."

A British official yesterday said it was unlikely MAPs would be offered to Ukraine and Georgia, but added: "The Americans are very enthusiastic on this, and they're quite good at getting their own way."

Meanwhile, the French offer of troops for Afghanistan triggered uproar in a parliamentary debate in Paris, where Jean-Marc Ayrault, head of the Socialist parliamentary group, said President Nicolas Sarkozy's choice to announce more troops at Westminster last week was a "humiliation" for French MPs. He said the troop reinforcements "have little to do with Afghanistan and much to do with President Sarkozy's Atlanticist obsession."