North Korea implodes its nuclear program; President Bush decides to lift Pyongyang out of evil-axis list

G8 foreign ministers to follow up Iranian nuclear program

Solana: Intensive sanctions in core of European strategies with plans to continue discussions

IAEA refers samples taken from Syrian site to labs

North Korea has submitted its long-awaited nuclear program declaration to China, as part of an agreement to remove itself from a U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism.

U.S. researchers examine lathes used for machining uranium metal fuel rods at the Pyongyang plant.

North Korea handed over the declaration to officials from China, which led the six-nation talks that hammered out the conditions of the agreement.

The declaration is expected to contain details on North Korea's plutonium stockpile. North Korea will also continue preparations to publicly dismantle a controversial nuclear reactor -- key steps meant to assuage international concerns about nuclear activity in the usually secretive Communist nation.

The White House welcomed the declaration.

"Multilateral diplomacy is the best way to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "North Korea should seize this moment of opportunity to restore its relationship with the international community

." Under the agreement, leaders in Pyongyang agreed to provide a full accounting of the plutonium, "acknowledge" concerns about its nuclear proliferation and uranium enrichment activities and agree to continued cooperation with a process to assure that no further activities are taking place.

The agreement includes additional monitoring to assure Pyongyang receives promised economic and energy assistance in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program.

North Korea is set to implode a cooling tower on its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. Nuclear experts have already begun dismantling the plant's main reactor.

But the destruction of the cooling tower is expected to be a powerful public symbol -- as well as a step that would take more than a year to reverse, according to U.S. State Department officials. Watch a report on the step toward curbing N. Korea's nuclear activities »

In a rare move, North Korea has invited international news organizations to witness the tower's destruction

. Speaking last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that once Pyongyang hands over the declaration, U.S. President George W. Bush will announce that North Korea has been removed from the state-sponsored terrorism list and will lift some sanctions against the nation that were levied because of nuclear concerns.

The lifting of the sanctions will have no immediate effect, however, because similar sanctions are in place under other areas of U.S. law, Rice said.

Under the six-party agreement, a 45-day review period will begin after the declaration is handed over. During that time, international nuclear officials will examine the documents to make sure they are accurate and complete.

The six-party talks also included South Korea, Japan and Russia.

During negotiations, the United States ultimately softened demands that North Korea admit to having a highly enriched uranium program and supplying Syria with nuclear technology -- sticking points that had stalled the talks for months.

Rice said the final deal wasn't perfect, but offered the United States its best chance yet to learn about North Korea's nuclear activities.

Speaking to reporters, National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley conceded that the administration had decided to accept incremental progress with North Korea instead of its previous all-or-nothing strategy. He said the notion that North Korea would quickly acquiesce to all of Washington’s demands “was probably unrealistic.”

Even so, many critics of Mr. Bush noted that the administration’s turnaround on North Korea did not come about until after North Korea exploded its first nuclear device in October 2006. Mr. Hill and Ms. Rice subsequently persuaded Mr. Bush that North Korea’s nuclear test had changed the rules of the game enough that the president should complete an agreement with North Korea and four other countries that led to Thursday’s declaration.

The United States welcomes the North Korean declaration of its nuclear programs. Today's development is an important step in the multi-step process laid out in the Six Party Talks between North Korea, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

The Six Party Talks are based on a principle of "action for action." North Korea has pledged to disable all its nuclear facilities and will destroy the cooling tower of the Yongbyon reactor. North Korea also pledged to declare its nuclear activities. This information will be essential to verifying that North Korea is ending all of its nuclear programs and activities.

The United States will respond to North Korea's actions by lifting the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act as well as announcing our intent to rescind North Korea's designation as a State Sponsor of Terror in 45 days. During this period, the United States will carefully assess North Korea's actions particularly with regard to verification.

There is still more work to be done in order for North Korea to end its isolation. It must dismantle all of its nuclear facilities, give up its separated plutonium, and resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities. It must end these activities in a fully verifiable way.

Multilateral diplomacy is the best way to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue. North Korea should seize this moment of opportunity to restore its relationship with the international community.

The United States put North Korea on its state-sponsored terror list in January 1988 after its alleged involvement with the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner. The Korean Air Lines flight crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing all 115 people on board.

The G8 foreign ministers' meeting pledged an assistance of $4 billion to help stabilize the volatile border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Foreign ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations discussed the issue of Afghanistan and reaffirmed their commitment to support the war-torn country on its path to long-term stability.

During talks at a working dinner in the Japanese city of Kyoto, the leaders endorsed more than 150 projects currently planned or implemented by the G8 members.

A statement issued after the meeting said the G8 fund will be utilized to build the Afghan national army and police and strengthen support for Afghanistan in other elements of security sector reform.

The ministers also discussed the issues of Myanmar and Pakistan.

Foreign ministers from the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan are attending the two-day meeting chaired by Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura.

"The G8 has decided to provide support for the tribal people living in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan," Komura said after talks in the ancient Japanese capital Kyoto.

International efforts for nuclear nonproliferation and peace building in war-torn countries are the topics of focus in this gathering.

This is the last in a series of G8 ministerial conferences held in the run-up to the G8 summit scheduled for July 7-9 in Hokkaido, Japan.

Iran faces a new round of financial sanctions as the European Union has agreed to freeze the overseas assets of its largest bank.

The counter-measures, announced by Gordon Brown, may indicate the failure of last weekend's talks in Tehran.

Senior diplomats from five nations, including Britain, visited Iran and formally offered to help the country's civilian nuclear program and extend other economic benefits if Tehran obeys the United Nations and stops enriching uranium.

Before this mission took place, a senior British official said that Iran would have "about a month" to respond to the offer before any further sanctions were imposed.

Instead, new penalties were announced on the day after the mission ended, suggesting that the talks in Tehran made no progress.

During a press conference in London with President George W Bush, the Prime Minister said: "Britain will urge Europe, and Europe will agree to take further sanctions against Iran.

"We will take action that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank Iran, the Melli Bank, and secondly action will start for a new phase of sanctions on oil and gas."

A Foreign Office spokesman said that all of the EU's 27 member states had agreed to freeze any assets held in their jurisdictions by Bank Melli, Iran's largest state-owned bank.

The spokesman added that "work was in hand" to bring this measure into effect and it was likely to happen "in the next few days".

But further sanctions designed to stop European investment in Iran's crucial oil and natural gas industries were "still in discussion" and no final agreement had been reached.

Bank Melli, which has branches in Paris and Hamburg, was Iran's first commercial bank. Like all of Iran's finance houses, it is state-owned.

America has already imposed unilateral financial sanctions on Iran and frozen any dollar assets held by its banks. In effect, the EU is now adopting the same measures, significantly increasing the economic pressure on Tehran.

This leaves the commercial centers of the Middle East, notably Dubai, as Iran's crucial financial outlets. Bank Melli's regional headquarters and two subsidiary branches are in Dubai.

Financial sanctions raise the cost of doing business inside Iran, but high oil prices cushion the country from the full effects of economic counter-measures.

The apparent failure of last weekend's talks indicate that financial pressure has not yet changed Iran's decision to continue enriching uranium. This highly sensitive process could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium  the essential material for a nuclear bomb.

Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

Western powers are warning the Islamic Republic of more punitive measures if it rejects an incentives offer and presses on with sensitive nuclear work, but the world's fourth-largest oil exporter is showing no sign of backing down.

"Part of Iran's assets in European banks has been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, deputy foreign minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.

A London-based unit of Iran’s largest bank, Bank Melli, said it would challenge the legality of European Union sanctions against it in British and EU courts.

Bank Melli and its subsidiaries were named in the latest round of sanctions agreed by the EU to increase pressure on Tehran to scale back its nuclear program and abandon enrichment of uranium.

The unit, Melli Bank Plc, said it would apply to the courts for judicial review and an interim injunction to suspend the application of the sanctions. A source close to the bank said the move could come soon.

"Melli Bank Plc will also be initiating proceedings before the European Court of First Instance to challenge the legality of the decision," it said in a statement, which called the sanctions against it disproportionate and discriminatory.

"Melli Bank Plc, as a UK bank, is legally and functionally distinct from its parent. It complies with all relevant sanctions (against Iran) and will continue to do so, and has an unblemished record of compliance with its regulators in the UK."

Any successful challenge to the sanctions would embarrass the government. Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a point of announcing last week that London had initiated the European Union action against Bank Melli, its branches and subsidiaries.

The EU’s official journal, documenting Monday’s sanctions move, said Bank Melli had "facilitated numerous purchases of sensitive materials for Iran’s nuclear and missile programs" and provided a range of financial services to entities involved.

The United States imposed similar sanctions on Bank Melli last October. Iran rejects Western suspicions its nuclear program is a cover for building an atomic bomb, saying it is solely aimed at generating electricity.

The Treasury issued a notice instructing banks to freeze any funds they hold for Melli Bank Plc and its Hong Kong branch, which is also covered by the latest sanctions.

The bank specialized in trade financing for companies doing business with Iran, and its average number of employees last year was 92, according to its website.

Already feeling the U.S. squeeze, Melli Bank Plc saw its after-tax profit fall to 34.5 million euros (27 million pounds) in the year to December 31, 2007, from 41.6 million euros in 2006. Total assets fell by a third to 1.8 billion euros.

By end-2007 it had reined its assets so that more than half were held in Iran. Of the total, 1.2 billion euros were bank loans and receivables, 339 million euros were customer loans and receivables and 245 million euros were held in debt securities.

The bank extensively restructured its holdings last year to reduce the impact of U.S. sanctions. It sold or converted into euros all its dollar-denominated investments, reduced activity in dollar-driven financial markets and switched its share capital from dollars into euros.

"The individuals will be banned from entering the EU and the entities will be banned from operating in the EU," said an EU official, who wanted to remain anonymous, after EU ministers rubber-stamped the measures at a meeting in Luxembourg.

The EU was due to publish the names of those affected but the official said Bank Melli would face an asset freeze under the moves, while the visa bans would target "very senior experts" inside Iran's nuclear and ballistic programs.

"Its impact [will be] more expensive imports," Iranian analyst Saeed Laylaz said of the impact on Iran of the move against Bank Melli, a key supplier of export guarantees.

"The economy of Iran will be more dependent on Chinese markets," he added of a growing shift in Iran's focus to Asia that has seen Europe's share of the Islamic Republic's trade dwindle to 25-30 per cent from twice that five years ago.

The European sanctions follow a similar U.S. asset freeze imposed on Bank Melli last year and a senior U.S. Treasury official hailed them as another step in isolating Tehran from the international financial system.

"Now that you have Europe really stepping up and trying to take tangible action, it really underscores the fact that it isn't just the U.S. that's doing it," said Daniel Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes.

"I'm optimistic that we're going to be able to find traction in the Gulf and in Asia" to put additional financial pressure on Iran, he added.

Bank Melli has branches in Paris and Hamburg and a unit in London called Melli Bank Plc. A source close to the subsidiary said it was seeking information from British authorities on whether and how the sanctions would affect it.

The EU official stressed the sanctions were based on measures agreed by the U.N. Security Council and that six powers – the five permanent members of the Council plus Germany – still sought an answer from Iran to their incentives offer.

"We are continuing with the double-track," the official said of the carrot-and-stick policy that has until now not induced Iran to curb a nuclear program, suspected by the West of being a cover for making an atom bomb.

The United States and the EU agreed this month they were ready to take additional steps aimed at ensuring Iranian banks could not back proliferation and terrorism.

Diplomats say there are exploratory talks in the West about the possibility of targeting Iran's energy sector with future sanctions.

Iran insists its nuclear work is a peaceful program, but the dispute has sparked fears of military confrontation and helped push up oil prices to record highs.

Iran's oil minister has put its windfall crude export earnings at $6-billion (U.S) a month and acting economy minister Hossein Samsami said at the weekend existing sanctions were not having a major impact on the country's economy.

Iranian weekly Shahrvand-e Emrooz reported this month that Iran had withdrawn $75-billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked, but Samsami played down such reports and insisted the situation was "as yet not serious."

The new incentives offer is based on an updated version of one rejected by Iran in 2006 and includes help in developing a civilian nuclear program and trade benefits.

Diplomats said major powers had offered Iran preliminary talks on its nuclear program, on condition it limit enrichment to current levels for six weeks in exchange for a freeze on moves towards harsher sanctions.

Earlier, Iran said it was encouraged by similarities between the offer and proposals it has put forward to defuse the row, but again rejected suspending uranium enrichment.

The UN nuclear watchdog is satisfied with the initial results of a visit by its inspectors to an alleged nuclear site in Syria.

US envoy Gregory Schulte pointed out the great lengths to which Syria went to clean up the site and destroy any evidence of what had existed at Al-Kibar.

US intelligence suggested that Syria had conducted a controlled demolition of the building and had removed equipment and debris.

"Much of the work took place at night or under the cover of tarpaulins," Schulte told the IAEA board meeting earlier this month.

"Syria's obfuscation and concealment efforts raise many troubling questions," the US envoy said.

If the reactor was intended for a civil nuclear energy program, "why go to such lengths to cover up its clandestine activities? What does Syria have to hide?"

Olli Heinonen, the deputy head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that he is satisfied with the initial outcomes of the three-day trip of an IAEA team to Syria to check the allegations that Damascus was running a secret nuclear program.

The UN official, however, said the visit was the start of the process to investigate the allegations.

"It was a good start, but there's still work that remains to be done," Heinonen said. “For this trip we did what we agreed to. We achieved what we wanted on this first trip. We took samples which we wanted to take.

Now it's time to analyze them."

The US and Israel claim Al-kibar, a site in a remote desert area of northeastern Syria, which was bombed by Israel last September, was a secret nuclear reactor under construction with the help of North Korea.

Syria's vice president Farouk Al-sharaa said his country allowed UN nuclear inspectors to visit a site in the remote eastern desert allegedly destroyed by IAF jets last year to prove that US allegations of a covert Syrian nuclear program were false.

Al-sharaa said however that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors would not be allowed to probe beyond the Al-kibar site, despite a UN request to visit three other suspect locations.

His comments in an interview with the Hezbollah-owned Al Manar TV station were the first from Syria on the four-day visit by the IAEA team.

A senior UN atomic inspector told reporters upon his return to Vienna, Austria, the site of IAEA headquarters, that his team's initial probe of US allegations was inconclusive and required further checks.

Olli Heinonen, a deputy director general of the agency said he was satisfied with what was achieved on his three-day trip but "there is still work that needs to be done" in following up on the claims that Syria was hiding elements of a potential nuclear arms program.

He met in the Syrian capital with officials in charge of the nation's nuclear program and senior generals to discuss Syrian claims that the building flattened by the IAF was a non-nuclear military facility.

With Syrian authorities imposing a virtual news blackout on his trip, few details of the visit had surfaced beyond the fact that Syrian authorities had allowed the three-man inspecting team to visit the Al-kibar site targeted in September.

"They (inspectors) have rights to visit only the concerned site," Al-sharaa said in the interview. He said Syria agreed to the inspection "to prove that their (US) allegations are false and untrue."

He suggested, however, that even confidence in Syria's innocence may not be enough to head off a prolonged inspection process because of "the experience of other countries." He was apparently referring to the UN agency's protracted probe during former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's rule, which did not turn up any evidence of Iraq having had weapons of mass destruction as the US alleged.

Al-sharaa said Syria wants the Middle East to be a nuclear-free region on condition that Israel also be subjected to monitoring and international inspections.

He said Syria would employ certain "political and diplomatic" methods at the UN Security Council and with the IAEA in case the agency insists on a prolonged nuclear probe and visiting more sites. He did not elaborate or say what they were.

Damascus strongly denies US allegations that it is involved in any nuclear activities and fears the accusations could be used by Washington to rally international pressure against it.

Damascus has promised to assist the guests from Vienna in every possible way. Moreover, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad claims it was the Syrians themselves who invited the IAEA experts and let them visit the area that was bombed by Israel. But three other facilities, mentioned in the U.S. report, will be closed to inspectors.

The Syrian president said that the agreement with the IAEA does not provide for inspections based on media reports. That is a reasonable argument, and any country would do the same. But are these really just newspaper publications, or have IAEA inspectors received classified information from the United States?

Damascus and Pyongyang helped Iran to develop its nuclear program through the construction of a suspected nuclear site in Syria that Israel destroyed last September, Der Spiegel reported.

But the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is considering withdrawing his support for the Iranian program, added the German newsweekly in its next edition out, quoting German secret service reports.

According to those intelligence reports, it said, a joint plan by Syria, North Korea and Iran for a nuclear reactor for military use was to have been developed at the Al-kibar site in the east of Syria.

The site was destroyed by Israeli warplanes with Washington's support. Syria denied it has military purposes.

The reports cited by Der Spiegel claimed that North Korea was to help Iranian scientists to advance their nuclear program, and that Al-Kibar was to have been used as a temporary site for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb until it was able to do so on its own territory.

The plan was discussed during a visit by Iranian President Mamhoud Ahmadinejad to Syria in 2006, according to the magazine.

The three countries also cooperated in the production of chemical weapons, said Der Spiegel, quoting the same source. At the time of an explosion at a chemical site in July 2007, 15 Syrian soldiers, 12 Iranian engineers and three North Koreans were among the victims.

There is no evidence Syria has the skilled personnel or the fuel to operate a large-scale nuclear facility, the head of the United Nations atomic watchdog said.

"We have no evidence that Syria has the human resources that would allow it to carry out a large nuclear program. We do not see Syria having nuclear fuel," International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamad ElBaradei told Al Arabiya television.

ElBaradei said the IAEA only had pictures of a site in Syria bombed by Israel last year, which resembled a nuclear facility in North Korea.

The IAEA added Syria to its proliferation watch list in April after receiving U.S. intelligence material, including photographs suggesting Damascus had almost finished building a nuclear reactor in secret with North Korean help before Israel destroyed it in an air strike in September.

Damascus, a U.S. foe and ally of Iran, denies any covert nuclear activity and says the site Israel bombed was a military facility under construction. It has said it would cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the allegations of nuclear activity.

ElBaradei has said previously that Syria had agreed to a June 22-24 inspection visit to examine the allegations. In the interview, he called on Damascus to cooperate with the IAEA inspectors.

Diplomats have said Syria has refused IAEA requests to examine three sites other than the bombed one.

President Bush and Iraq's president expressed cautious optimism about prospects for completing a complex agreement that would keep U.S. troops in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires at year-end.

Bush said the U.S. was working on an agreement that "suits" the Iraqi government. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, speaking in the Oval Office after meeting with Bush, cited recent progress and said he hoped it could be finished "very soon."

U.S. and Iraqi authorities are trying to meet a July target date for completing the security agreement. Talks bogged down over several key issues, which Iraqi lawmakers said violated the nation's sovereignty. Recently, however, Iraqi authorities said prospects for a deal had brightened after the Americans submitted new, unspecified proposals.

"We talked about a strategic framework agreement that suits the Iraqi government," Bush said. "We talked about elections and different laws that have been passed. We talked about the fact that the economy's improving and that the attitude of the people there has improved immeasurably over the years."

Bush wants the agreement in place before he leaves office. If not, major decisions about how U.S. forces operate in Iraq could be left to the next president, including how much authority the U.S. must give Iraqis over military operations and how quickly the handover takes place.

"We are doing our best for this agreement — strategic agreement with the United States of America," Talabani said. "I think we have very good, important steps toward reaching to finalize this agreement ... very soon."

Talabani also said he thinks the Iraqi government can pass oil and elections laws this year and has moved forward on normalizing relations with Iran and Syria and improving relations with Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait.

He said he briefed Bush about Iraq's struggle against terrorism and militias threatening civil war.

"Now, I can say that Iraq — a big part of Iraq is stable and is secured and separated from the danger of terrorism and militia," Talabani said. "Yes, some places ... there are some groups who remain here and there."

The US House of Representatives approved a compromise bill to free up 162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stripped of a timetable to pull US occupation troops out of Iraq. The bill was approved after Democrats and Republicans hammered out a deal following weeks of partisan haggling, angering activists seeking a swift end to the war in Iraq.

The legislation would finance the military operations through mid 2009. Before the vote, White House Budget Director Jim Nussle said the bill "meets the president's requirements." The deal was reached after Democrats agreed to drop a withdrawal timetable from the bill. The majority party has repeatedly failed to force President George W. Bush's hand on Iraq since taking over Congress in 2006 elections.

The legislation also calls on the Iraqi government to spend as much money as US taxpayers for reconstruction and bars the Bush administration from using the funding to establish permanent bases in Iraq. The war funding section of the bill passed by a 268-155 vote, with only 80 Democrats voting in favor along with 188 Republicans.

"This legislation is not perfect. No legislation is," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. "But it will provide for our troops in the field, while addressing critical priorities here at home." "Whether you agree or disagree with the president's decision to launch the war in Iraq, with the prosecution of this war, or with the president's stay-the-course strategy, I believe the American people want us to provide our troops with the resources they need to defend themselves," he said.

House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner called the bill "a major victory for our troops and their families." "The measure provides this critical funding without bogging it down with politically-motivated surrender language supported by Democratic leaders in Congress," he said. Republican presidential contender John McCain, a staunch backer of the war in Iraq, hailed the bill but took a swipe at the Democrats.

McCain's Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, has vowed to withdraw troops from Iraq. The compromise legislation angered leftist activists, who argued that Democrats won control of Congress in the 2006 election with a mandate to pull troops out of Iraq. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the compromise, saying the priority was to protect the interests of US troops.

Disputes over energy investment and human rights hung over a Russia-European Union summit where the two sides agreed they would try to address their differences in new talks on a stalled cooperation agreement.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the EU representatives said they would start talks in Brussels on a wide-ranging Russia-EU cooperation deal.

"The future agreement will be an instrument to draw Russia and the European Union closer," Medvedev said after the talks in the Siberian oil boomtown of Khanty-Mansiisk.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hailed a "sincere and open" atmosphere at the talks and said the new agreement should "open a new chapter in our relations."

The existing 10-year agreement signed in 1997 was automatically renewed pending the delays on reaching a new one, but the old deal has lost much of its meaning thanks to Russia's new oil and gas wealth and more assertive foreign policy stance.

The EU wants Moscow to open its vast energy sector to investors, but the Kremlin intends to maintain its control over Russia's oil and gas riches and energy pipelines.

Moscow, for its part, has pushed for better access to European markets.

"Russia remains a key energy supplier for the EU; the EU will remain Russia's most important export market," Barroso said. "For both of us, as producers and consumers, energy security is paramount. In this era of high energy prices this is a message our citizens understand only too well."

The EU is represented by Barroso, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

The bloc's trade chief, Peter Mandelson, said energy security can only be guaranteed if Russia joins the World Trade Organization.

Russia, the only major country still outside the WTO, still faces major barriers to membership even after 14 years of negotiations to join the 152-member body, which sets the rules on global trade.

The summit gives the EU a chance to test the intentions of Medvedev, who was inaugurated in early May. While his predecessor and mentor, Vladimir Putin, rolled back many post-Soviet democratic reforms during his eight-year tenure, Medvedev has vowed to protect the rule of law, media freedom and human rights.

Skeptics in Russia and the West say Medvedev's pledges are no more than rhetoric and expect him to toe the course of his predecessor, now Russia's prime minister.

The EU wants Russia to commit to bolstering democratic reforms and preserving human rights as part of the new "strategic partnership" agreement it hopes to have in force by July 2009.

Russia, which has bristled at Western criticism of its democracy record, has urged the EU to pay more attention to what it calls abuse of ethnic Russian rights in the ex-Soviet Baltic nations, which are now EU members.

Ferrero-Waldner said the EU also wants a bigger role in solving the so-called frozen conflict in Georgia, where the government is struggling to bring two separatist regions — Abkhazia and South Ossetia — back under central control. Russia maintains close ties with the regions.

Russia and the EU have also argued over security issues. Moscow objected to Kosovo's Western-backed independence and opposed U.S. plans to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic — plans that have been supported by EU nations.