Sitting on large exportable oil supplies, Putin tells George to "shut the fuck up."
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - President Bush backed away on Saturday from a public confrontation over Russia's democracy with President Vladimir Putin, adhering to a pledge not to lecture the Kremlin leader.
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At a joint news conference, the two made clear they discussed their differences privately on what critics say are declining civil liberties in Russia, and stepped gingerly around the issue in their public comments.
With Bush needing Russia's help on pressuring Iran and North Korea to forswear nuclear weapons, and with Middle East violence surging, democracy issues did not appear to play as dominating role in their talks as when they met in Slovakia last year.
Bush said it came up at their social dinner on Friday night.
"I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq, where there is a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country, you know, would hope that Russia would do the same thing," Bush said.
He quickly added: "I totally understand, however, that there will be a Russian-style democracy. I don't expect Russia to look like the United States. As Vladimir pointedly reminded me last night, 'We have a different history, different traditions."'
Putin pounced on the reference to Iraq. "We of course don't want to have a democracy like the one in Iraq, to be honest," he deadpanned, to laughter from Russian-speaking listeners.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060715/ts_nm/group_bush_democracy_dcPooty poot didn't even
pretend to have respect for George.