World leaders head to G8 summit amid foreign policy crisis

World leaders, tearing up a carefully prepared agenda for the annual Group of Eight summit, were to turn their attention to a growing crisis in the Middle East which highlighted the differences between them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had designed this year’s G8 economic summit, the first to be held in Russia, to showcase his country’s re-emergence on the world stage after a devastating economic collapse in 1998. He wanted to focus on energy security, the fight against infectious diseases and education.

Those issues were still going to be addressed at the summit, which was to officially begin in St Petersburg tonight with an opulent dinner in a former tsarist palace. But officials were quickly clearing discussion time to address a new explosion of violence in the Middle East.

Israel’s war planes began striking Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others Wednesday in a cross-border raid into Israel. In response, Palestinian militants have fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israel.

Israel has also been waging an offensive in the Gaza Strip for more than two weeks since an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinian militants. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked government buildings linked to the militant Hamas group. Hamas has fired crude homemade rockets into southern Israel.

US President George W. Bush called the leaders of Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan on his way to Russia from Germany in a search for ways to end three days of furious fighting. Bush has rejected an appeal from Lebanon for a ceasefire while calling on Israel to limit civilian casualties.

But other summit leaders have been more blunt in their condemnation of what they see as an overreaction on the part of Israel which has caused dozens of civilian deaths and risked a major escalation of bloodshed in the Middle East.

Putin held a one-on-one meeting with Bush this morning, before the summit opening.

“Today, together with our colleagues, we will have a chance to discuss both bilateral issues” and issues of global importance, he said at the start of his talks with Bush.

“It is extremely important to us to synchronise our watch with you, Mr President, and with your administration,” Putin said. “Hopefully, it will serve a boost to the G8 summit.”

Putin held an informal barbecue dinner for Bush Friday night, and discussions there were “extraordinarily open”, Kremlin deputy spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

In addition to the Middle East, both were expected to discuss ways to deal with nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea and Russia’s 12-year effort to join the World Trade Organisation.

Sergei Prikhodko, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said that as the summit host, Russia felt the need to try to reach agreement on a joint declaration on the Middle East crisis, calling the situation “very dangerous and worrying.”

Italian prime minister Romano Prodi said the “spiral of violence” was an indication that the Middle East situation had “regressed 20 years”.

French President Jacques Chirac was even harsher in his comments about Israel, saying, “one could ask if today there is not sort of a will to destroy Lebanon, its equipment, its roads, its communications.”

Putin said that no hostage-takings were acceptable but “neither is the use of full-scale force in response to these, even if unlawful, actions. … We will demand that all sides involved in the conflict immediately stop the bloodshed”.