ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - The world's most powerful leaders gather this week in Russia's old Czarist capital to mark its 300th birthday in sparkling style, their first chance to face each other since the bitter row over the Iraq war.
Days before the world's seven largest industrial economies and Russia hold their annual summit in France, the glittering St. Petersburg party will give a clue to how much rancor lingers over the U.S.-led war which so many in Europe opposed.
In an article published on Thursday in London's Times newspaper, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov wrote: "The way is now open for a better future for Iraq and, equally importantly, for an end to the quarrels between the big powers in the wider field of international relations."
But last week in Paris, Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested Washington was still annoyed with France for its leading role in blocking attempts to win United Nations support for the invasion of Iraq.
U.S. officials insist President Bush will not go so far as to snub his chief anti-war critics -- French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When they sit down for dinner together on Saturday in the Peterhof palace, Russia's answer to Versailles facing the Baltic Sea, it will be the first time the key players in the angry debate over the Iraq invasion have looked each other in the eye since the war.
LOOKING WEST
The city, renamed in Soviet times as Leningrad, was planted on the watery wastelands of Russia's Baltic coast in 1703 by Peter the Great, determined to wrench a reluctant population into modern Western ways.
Three centuries later, Putin is trying to do much the same with Russia now struggling to recover from the confusion and poverty following the collapse of the Soviet Union 11 years ago.
After two days of banquets, fireworks and events to showcase the city's cultural heritage, Putin will hold private talks with Bush on Sunday morning. They then fly off for the Group of Eight summit in Evian, France.
The two will sign a largely ceremonial agreement on nuclear weapons reduction.
They are also expected to discuss economic relations, concerns over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and U.S. unease with Russian help to build a nuclear power plant in Iran. Washington says the plant is a ploy by oil-rich Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
The issue is the biggest thorn in warming U.S.-Russian ties, though the Kremlin is now leaning toward Washington's position, saying it too is nervous about Iran's intentions.
"America is clearly saying: the question of whether Russia and the United States can finally mend their friendship, and whether the 'mini-disagreement between Putin and Bush over Iraq' will be forgotten, depends today on the position Moscow takes on the question of nuclear cooperation with Tehran," the Izvestia daily said.
OVER 40 LEADERS
More than 40 leaders will come to Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg, the largest crowd of dignitaries to visit Russia's "window on the West" since Czarist times.
It will be a chance for Putin to show that he is putting Russia onto a new, and sounder, footing -- key goals too if his supporters are to maintain their grip on parliament in elections at the end of the year and secure his own re-election in 2004.
"A lot of what Putin is doing now has the elections in mind," said one senior Western diplomat.
All 15 leaders from the European Union will come, along with the 10 countries who will soon join, most of them once within the Soviet bloc.
On the sidelines, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will hold his first summit with new Chinese President Hu Jintao, a chance for the Asian neighbors to improve ties.
The talks could pave the way for a visit to China by Koizumi, put off since last year because of his visit to the controversial Japanese war shrine, still viewed in China as a symbol of Japan's militarism in World War II.
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