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Putin leaves for EU member Greece on Thursday, with trade ties and construction of a Bulgaria-Greece oil pipeline on the agenda, along with security issues linked to the realignment of international relations after the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.
Russia has aligned itself firmly alongside Washington in its military response and campaign to oust Afghanistan's Taliban movement. It has also grown closer to NATO, with suggestions of a new framework for ties and calls for intensified cooperation.
Interviewed by Greece's NET and Mega television stations before departure, Putin said Europeans would gain no benefits from an expanded NATO. But they would feel safer if Moscow built stronger links with both NATO and the European Union, which plans to create a 60,000-strong rapid action force by 2003.
"Go into the street of any major city in a NATO country ...and ask anyone whether NATO expansion will improve his security and make him feel safer. I can assure you the answer will be no," Putin said.
"But if Russia acts together in cooperative and effective fashion with the current bloc, will it improve the security of the average citizen in these countries? I am almost certain the answer will be positive. And it will be the truth." PUTIN PLEDGES COOPERATION WITH NATO, EU
Russia, he said, did not seek to join NATO but was "fully in a position to alter its relations to act against what are not invented, but real, threats. We are ready to cooperate not only with NATO, but with the emerging security systems on the European continent, though these do not yet exist."
Putin said Russia remained opposed to any U.S. missile shield that would eliminate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, but pledged further discussions with Washington. The main threat to be parried, he said, was not ballistic missiles, but rather weapons of mass destruction.
"If we are to act effectively, we need ways to unite efforts rather than divisions into national 'compartments'," he said.
Putin and President George W. Bush failed to bridge divisions on the U.S. missile shield at their summit last month in Washington and Texas.
But a visit to Moscow by NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson immediately after the summit explored ways of altering Russia's post-Cold War relations with NATO.
Putin meets President Costis Stephanopoulos immediately after his arrival and is to sign cooperation agreements on justice, police, air transport, shipping, energy and culture.
He will underscore the two countries' common Orthodox heritage by meeting Greek Archbishop Christodoulos before embarking on talks on Friday with Prime Minister Costas Simitis.
Among topics to be discussed are completion of an overland pipeline to carry Russian oil from the Bulgarian port of Bourgas to Alexandroupolis in Greece. Pledges will be made to boost annual trade, which stands at a mere $800 million.
Putin journeys on Saturday to Thessaloniki in northern Greece and takes a helicopter to the all-male monastic community of the Mount Athos peninsula and the 18th century Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon, which still houses 35 monks.
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