U.S. President George W. Bush is due to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Sunday in Kennebunkport, Maine, to soothe tensions between the two countries that have developed over issues such as a proposed U.S. missile shield, human rights issues and the Iraq war.

The meeting will take place at the Bush family's stone-and-shingle summer home on the craggy Maine coast overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. No other foreign leader has ever received such a rarified invitation before.

During their two-day meeting, the two leaders are expected to focus on the Middle East, Iran's nuclear ambitions, missile defense, the future of Kosovo and a civilian nuclear reactor cooperation initiative.

No major initiative will be signed, according to White House spokesman Tony Snow. "If you're expecting some sort of grand initiative, a bold announcement - no," he said on Wednesday.

Relations between Washington and Moscow turned tense when Putin in his public speech on May 9 compared Bush's foreign policy to that of the Third Reich of German dictator Adolf Hitler.

In February, the Russian leader accused the United States of "plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts."

It was generally believed that it will be the two leaders' last real opportunity to reverse the declining U.S.-Russia relations, aside from chats they might have on the sidelines of an Asian-Pacific summit in Australia in September.

The Bush-Putin meeting is expected to be friendly. But most experts do not expect much substantive progress to come from the summit.

"At best the U.S. and Russia might agree to a joint study of missile defense plans," the Christian Science Monitor said.

Source: Xinhua