Bush says: 'Russia is not the enemy'

President Bush gave his first public reaction today to Vladimir Putin's threat to turn Russia's nuclear missiles back towards Europe if the United States installs a missile shield in two former Eastern Bloc states, insisting: "Russia is not the enemy."

Mr Bush was speaking on a visit to the Czech Republic - one of two former Soviet satellites in which the US wants to base parts of a missile defence shield - en route to the G8 summit in Germany.

The Russian President used an interview with The Times at the weekend to warn the West that Moscow could respond to the missile system by aiming its own warheads at Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War.

But Mr Bush said today: "My attitude on missile defence is that this is a purely defensive measure, not aimed at Russia.”

At a joint press conference with President Klaus and Mirek Topolanek, the Czech Prime Minister, Mr Bush said that his message to Mr Putin would be that "you should not fear the missile defence system".

"Why don’t you co-operate on the missile defence system? Why don’t you participate with the United States? Send your generals over to see how such a system would work, send your scientists," he added.

The US proposal to site a tracking radar on Czech soil as part of its extended missile defence system was one of the main issues broached during today's talks between Mr Bush and Czech leaders. Washington also wants to install ten missile interceptors in Poland, which like the Czech Republic, insists that the shield should enhance its own security.

“The Cold War is over," Mr Bush added. "It ended. People in the Czech Republic do not have to choose between being friends of the US or friends of Russia. You can be both.”

Mr Bush's comments - ahead of a major speech on democracy and security this afternoon - will do little to assuage fears that the showdown between Russia and the West could dominate a summit meant to focus on aid for Africa and a co-ordinated response to the problem of global warming.

The United States says that the missile defence shield is not aimed at Russia but at protecting the West from rogue states such as Iran or North Korea. But Mr Putin told The Times that neither Iran nor North Korea had such rockets and the system was clearly designed to be used against Russia.

In an effort to ease relations, Mr Bush has invited the Russian leader for an unprecedented stay at his family’s summer compound at Kennebunkport next month. But he is also hosting Estonia’s President at the White House the previous week - despite a row over the Baltic state’s removal of a memorial to fallen Soviet soldiers - and is due to visit Poland after this week's summit.

Mr Bush will arrive at the summit venue at a beachfront hotel in the northern German resort of Heiligendamm tonight, where formal talks with the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia start tomorrow.

The eight leaders will be kept safely away from anti-globalisation protestors behind a fence topped with barbed wire and an underwater barrier suspended in the Baltic Sea.

Violent protests against the summit have rocked the nearby city of Rostock, with hundreds of police injured in two days of riots by leftists and anti-globalisation protesters.

As summit host, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, will seek a commitment from the G8 leaders to accept mandatory limits on the emission of greenhouse gases - something that the United States, in particular, has argued against.

Ahead of the summit, the G8 'sherpas' were today trying to nail down the main points of a summit communique. Germany is pushing for an agreement to limit the global temperature rise to 2C (3.6F) and to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent compared to 1990 levels by 2050.

Mr Bush last week unveiled his own proposals on global warming and said a long-term goal for reducing greenhouses gases could be set by the end of 2008 - raising fears among environmentalists that Washington was trying to muddy the waters before the summit.

In a speech in Washington, David Miliband, the UK Environment Secretary, said that climate change was an economic, social and security issue, not just an “environmental” problem.

Mr Miliband told an audience at the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change that the technologies exist to enable the transition to a low-carbon global economy and that 2007 is a pivotal year for building a global consensus on tackling climate change.

But he added: “I am convinced that the big challenges that the world faces cannot be solved by any one country alone, but equally none of them will be solved without the United States.”