Russia negotiating with France to buy four warships (Roundup)

Mar 1, 2010, 20:12 GMT

Paris - Russia has begun exclusive negotiations with France to purchase four Mistral helicopter-carrying warships, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, said Monday in Paris.

The controversial deal has provoked nervousness and consternation in the former Soviet republics, such as Gerogia and the Baltic nations, as well as in the United States.

But both Sarkozy and Medvedev said the deal was important for improving ties between Paris and Moscow.

'The Mistral has raised conflicting reactions. But it is a symbol of trust between our two countries,' Medvedev said.

'We cannot say that we need you and then not have any trust,' Sarkozy said. 'That would not be consistent.'

However, Sarkozy noted that France would sell the Mistral warships to Russia without any military equipment.

The announcement of the negotiations came at the beginning of a two-day state visit by Medvedev, his first official trip to France since he took office in May 2008.

The two men held a news conference after meeting at the Elysee Palace, and after the signature of three bilateral contracts before the assembled journalists.

One of the contracts allows French utility GDF Suez to take part in the North Stream gas line project and the other will create a joint company by train manufacturers Alstom of France and Russia's TMH.

The third agreement will allow Russian citizens to travel to France without a visa and will create what Sarkozy called 'a free- travel zone' between Russia and France.

The two leaders said they had discussed a broad range of issues and that they were agreed on many of them, including how to deal with Iran's nuclear programme.

Sarkozy said Medvedev had expressed the wish that any sanctions imposed on Tehran would take into account humanitarian consequences.

Another potentially difficult issue the two presidents discussed was a future security architecture for Europe that would include Russia.

Medvedev said European security was 'of vital importance,' and pointed to the 2008 resolution of the Georgian conflict - in which Sarkozy had played an important role as head of the EU - as a potential model for the future.

'This situation was resolved ... not via NATO structures but through the European Union,' he said.

Sarkozy said that France remained loyal to NATO, but added: 'We must examine what a new security architecture between Europe and Russia will look like.'

The French president said that it was high time that relations between Russia and the West changed.

'We wish to put the Cold War behind us. The time has come to turn the page and look to a new era,' Sarkozy said.

Medvedev expressed his condolences to France for the violent storm that struck France at the weekend, killing at least 51 people and causing hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

On Tuesday, Sarkozy and Medvedev will visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then inaugurate an exhibition of sacred Russian art at the Louvre Museum.

The exhibition is part of a year-long cultural program called A Year of Russian Culture in France, which will comprise dozens of other exhibitions of Russian art.

Medvedev was accompanied to Paris by some 100 entrepreneurs and heads of industry, who will attend a forum hosted by the French employers' union MEDEF.

Late Tuesday, Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, are to host a state dinner for Medvedev and his wife at the Elysee Palace.