Poetin spreekt in Londen met EU-leiders over klimaatverandering en energie (en)

Vladimir Putin is meeting EU leaders in London to discuss trade and energy issues on Tuesday (4 October), amid fresh accusations that Russian authorities are involved in the abduction and torture of civilians in the Caucasus region.

Business and climate change are the main topics on today's agenda, as the Russian president visits the British prime minister Tony Blair, currently at the helm of the EU presidency.

Prior to the top-level meeting, officials on both sides held talks about future trade and energy cooperation between Moscow and Brussels, in the context of Russia's pending request to join the World Trade Organisation.

Russia is a key supplier of natural gas to the EU, with some analysts predicting it will soon provide 50 percent of the bloc's needs. Business between the two superpowers has also grown significantly in the first six months of 2005.

"Trade and investment relations between Russia and the EU are strengthening all the time", EU tade commissioner Peter Mandelson told journalists on Monday, adding "Our job is to make those relations as easy as possible, to remove unnecessary barriers".

And Russian EU envoy Vladimir Chyzov said Moscow will develop new branches to its German Baltic Sea gas pipeline after 2009, adding links to Poland, the UK and the Netherlands.

The project has previously sparked huge criticism in Warsaw, due to fears that it will derail a parallel scheme designed to pass through Polish territory.

Other side of the coin

But a more delicate part of the debate will focus on political issues, with Moscow unhappy about the EU's activities in some of the ex-Soviet republics.

Russian authorities are watching the bloc's current plans to fund pro-democracy radio broadcasting in Belarus, following western Europe's support for presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine's Orange Revolution last year.

Moscow is also asking the EU to ease visa restrictions for its citizens, with Brussels in turn seeking Kremlin assurances that it will take back illegal immigrants coming to the union from Russia or via Russia from its neighbours.

Mr Putin might also remind Mr Blair about his objections to Britain's granting of asylum to Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen rebel leader and to Russian media tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who fled Russia to avoid a criminal investigation.

But the British presidency might equally point to recent concerns raised by human rights groups.

Leading human rights NGO Amnesty International released fresh findings about the North Caucasus region prior to the summit, suggesting that Russia's "war on terror" involves systematic human rights abuse.

"People are reportedly being arbitrarily detained and held in incommunicado detention, where they are subjected to torture and ill-treatment, in order to force them to confess to crimes that they have not committed. Once they have signed a 'confession' they are reportedly transferred to another detention facility where they have access to a lawyer of their choice and relatives; but the confession seems to be enough 'evidence' to secure their conviction", the Amnesty report staes.