WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush, under pressure from allies in Europe to be more forthcoming about his plans for basing missile interceptors in the region, said Monday that he was intensifying his efforts to persuade Russia to cooperate with the United States on the initiative “so that they don’t see us as an antagonistic force, but see us as a friendly force.”

Bush said he was trying to convince President Vladimir Putin of Russia that cooperation was “in Russia’s security interests,” even though Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not win Putin’s support during a trip to Moscow last week.

The president spoke in the Rose Garden after a meeting with leaders of the European Union that produced an agreement for the United States and Europe to work together to reduce pollution, which scientists say leads to climate change. But the agreement did not address the enormous differences that remain between the United States and Europe over those greenhouse gas emissions, and what role governments should play in reducing them.

Bush has been criticized for coming late to the idea that human actions contribute to the threat of global warming, and in his first term he renounced the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which European states agreed to.

On Monday, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who currently holds the European Union’s presidency, and Jos?© Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the union’s governing body, by his side, the president said the three “share a common interest,” adding, “We recognize that we have a problem with greenhouse gases.”

But Barroso characterized the agreement as “a work in progress,” adding, “To be very frank, it was better than what I was planning.”On the missile defense issue, Bush spoke publicly for the first time about his administration’s continuing efforts to ease tensions with Putin over the plan to place American missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic ??” efforts that, he said, began at Merkel’s urging.

“She expressed her concerns that the U.S. position wasn’t very clear about the missile defense systems and that there were some people concerned in Germany, as well as Europe, about our intentions,” Bush said. “And she also suggested that it might make sense for me to share my intentions more clearly with President Putin. And I took her advice very seriously.”

So, Bush said, he sent Gates to Moscow last week, and called Putin to ask him to meet with Gates. But the Kremlin not only refused to drop its opposition to the plan, it also threatened to pull out of a conventional weapons treaty. Still, Bush defended the plan, which officials have said was intended to protect against missiles being developed by Iran.

“Our intention, of course, is to have a defense system that prevents rogue regimes from holding Western Europe and/or America to hostage,” the president said. “Evidently, the Russians see it differently.”

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