Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel came together in Dresden on Tuesday for a second round of high-level talks. The German Chancellor had previously paid her Russian counterpart an inaugural visit in April. But Putin's appearance on Tuesday was overshadowed by the apparent contract killing of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian investigative reporter who was known for her open opposition to the Chechen conflict and the Putin administration.
It was not Putin's first time in Dresden: He spent five years working for Soviet Russia as a high-ranking KGB officer in the formerly East German city. Upon his return on Tuesday, Putin was the first head of state to enter Dresden's Green Vault Museum, a walk-in treasure chest of ancient German valuables that was damaged during World War II and reopened on September 1, 2006 after its reconstruction.
After hurrying past a few hundred demonstrators who denounced Putin as a "murderer," the two leaders proceeded to discuss energy resources, economic cooperation and global security, among other topics.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung welcomes the new chancellor's more reserved attitude towards the Russian president. The center-left daily criticizes former chancellor Gerhard Schröder's overly chummy relationship with Putin, calling it "his Putinphilia," and applauds Merkel for "bringing relations with Moscow back into balance." Dialogue with Russia remains indispensable, the paper says, because "Germany needs Russian energy [and] Russia needs German support in Europe," and also because "Germany is predestined, unlike any other state, to negotiate between Moscow and Washington." At the same time, the Süddeutsche writes, this dialogue has to be comprehensive: German-Russian relations should include "cooperation as well as criticism, dialogue as well as distance."
The Berliner Zeitung concurs with this analysis, and takes it one step further. "Why should German companies invest in Russia," the left-leaning paper asks, "if they can't count on the Russian rule of law, if they have to fear that problems and disputes will be resolved with bullets in the hallway or show trials?" The paper is referring to the assassination of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot from behind in her home hallway on Saturday, and to the 2003 arrest and subsequent conviction of Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of fraud and tax evasion.
The right-wing Die Welt invokes a Russian president who is hell-bent on transforming his country back into a global player. "Nothing drives Russian President Vladimir Putin more than the desire for him and his country to once again play along in the concert of the big boys," according to the daily paper. This ambition, the paper writes, is the best bargaining chip available to the Germans, "and Angela Merkel knows it."
The left-wing Tageszeitung wonders why there were only a handful of protesters at the Green Vault Museum in Dresden on Tuesday, when US President Bush's state visit to Germany in April caused a much greater furor. The answer is pointed: "Putin merely has to answer for crimes in his own country. That doesn't lend him any more moral credibility. But his capricious leadership hasn't actually threatened the structure of the entire world order." For the TAZ, then, "the US president has extensively proven during his tenure that he poses the greater threat to world peace."
Finally, the mass-circulation Bild Zeitung's macabre Wagner addresses an open letter to Putin, and as usual, he pulls no punches. He declares his love for Russia, citing its lush birch trees, the cathedral of Basilius, the hermitage in St. Petersburg and the house of Dostoevsky. But he goes on to tell Putin that "you are not the Russia that I love." "Surely there are some who see it differently"—he means Chancellor Merkel—but "I don't want any gas from a country where freedom of expression is gunned down."
-- Alex Baksta, 1pm CET
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