Britain and Russia pledged yesterday to rebuild friendly relations after years of bitter disputes over the murder in London of a former Russian agent with a rare radioactive isotope.
British prime minister David Cameron spent more than an hour in talks with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of a Group of Eight summit in Ontario. It was the first meeting between the two leaders.
"I think there is a real opportunity to put the bilateral relations on to a new footing to try make a stronger footing and work through the issues where we have agreement and those we still have things to work through," Mr Cameron said.
Ties between Britain and Russia nosedived to a post-Soviet low after the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko and Moscow's refusal to extradite a Russian to face trial for his murder in London.
"We agreed that our bilateral relationship required the personal attention of the leaders of the two countries both in terms of the economy and other issues and we are determined to make them more productive and intense," Mr Medvedev said.
Even before the Litvinenko murder, mutual espionage accusations between London and Moscow, and Britain's granting of political asylum to some of the Kremlin's enemies, had cast a pall over bilateral business and trade.
British companies accounted for $20.5 billion of the $265.8 billion Russia has attracted from abroad since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. Russian companies traditionally sell stocks and bonds in London.
Mr Medvedev and Mr Cameron also discussed Iran, the Middle East and the future of BP, which has a 50 per cent stake in TNK-BP, a joint venture with Russia-based partners.
"BP was touched upon very briefly and we confirmed that we are interested in seeing a favourable outcome for BP from the current situation," Mr Medvedev's chief economic aide, Arkady Dvorkovich, told reporters, referring to the company's huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Reuters