RUSSIA - Sept. 12 - Putin Blames Bin Ladin.

In the evening televised comments, Pres. Putin says: "We have reason to believe that Bin Ladin's people are connected with the events currently taking place" in Chechnya. "We know his people are present there. Our American partners cannot but be concerned about this circumstance. So we have a common foe, the common foe being international terrorism". On Sept. 12-13, Putin spoke twice with Pres. Bush as they sought to put aside recent policy disputes and forge a new relationship that would join them in battle against terrorists responsible for the devastating terrorist attacks on the US (see Arab-US Relations). The first telephone call lasted about five minutes and the second about seven minutes. The leaders discussed concrete plans for mutual action against terrorism. Putin offered two planeloads of medicine and supplies as well as 70 rescue workers, and promised to share any intelligence gathered about the origins of the airborne assaults on New York and Washington. In deference to the US tragedy, Putin cancelled a military exercise simulating warfare with the US and ordered a nationwide moment of silence on Sept. 13.

FM Igor Ivanov said: "We should learn together the lessons of the tragedy in the United States". Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told CNN: "We are both victims already, both the United States and Russia; what we need is closer ties and efforts in fighting terrorism". Vladimir Rushailo, the Security Council chief, consulted with his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice about "a united international front in the war on terrorism". After meeting with FM Igor Ivanov, US Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said: "We both face a common enemy, the enemy of international terrorism, and it's important that the international community as a whole unite against it". (The calamitous events on US territory might provide an opening for Moscow to redefine its relationship with the US. The Kremlin has tried for some time to shift the international dialogue away from divisive issues such as missile defence and Russian abuses in Chechnya to the global threat of Islamic terrorism. Moscow has justified its campaign in Chechnya as a necessary response to acts of domestic terrorism. Now, officials say, Americans should sympathise more with Moscow's determination to bring Chechnya to heel. Moscow and Washington officials noted that Bush's proposed nuclear shield would have done nothing to stop the hijacked planes that ploughed into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. But Vershbow stressed that the newfound togetherness on terrorism would not change Washington's concerns about Russian brutality in Chechnya. He said: "There is a terrorist dimension to the Chechnya conflict, but we also have to say that the Russian approach to solving that conflict is leading them down the wrong path").