Question: Prime Minister, last week there was talk of a new Cold War because of Russian resistance to American plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. President Putin spoke of a new arms race and talked about Russian missiles targeting European cities again. Is there a new era of détente after the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm?

Blair: No.

Question: But everyone smiled at the end.

Blair: I think that there is a desire to overcome this difficulty but I think the issue remains. The truth is that everyone wants a good relationship with Russia and knows it's important. There are deep concerns in Europe at the moment and the dispute over ballistic missile defense has obviously awakened tensions. The issue has not been resolved by the summit, but it gave us a chance to talk about it with him.

Question: Actually we talked to President Putin one week ago and his arguments against the missile shield seemed completely comprehensible to us.

Blair: The fact is, the Americans have always been very open that they wanted to develop this. There is absolutely no way that it offers protection against Russian missiles. And it is there for the reason it is there, which is that America wanted the development of the technology to have a defense against the possibility that Iran or North Korea or another rogue nuclear power might emerge with a long distance missile.

Question: Can you understand the Russian fear that the defensive missiles could be used not against Iran but against Russia?

Blair: That's surely something that has been obvious for a long time, since this has been under discussion for seven or eight years. So it's not suddenly been discovered. Now, I've got, and have always had, a good personal relationship with President Putin, and I want us to have a good relationship with Russia. But there is obviously at the moment a fundamental misunderstanding between the West and Russia. We have to try and get to the bottom of it and resolve it, otherwise what will happen over time is that instead of maximizing the business people want to do with Russia, they are going to minimize it.

Question: What do you think of Putin's suggestion to build a joint radar station with the Americans in Azerbaijan?

Blair: I don't know. I'm not qualified.

Question: What is your opinion of the G-8 agreements on climate change?

Blair: This is a huge step forward. And I think Chancellor Merkel has done a brilliant job on this. When I tried to put this on the agenda in 2005 at Gleneagles, we got it on the agenda and we started the G-8 plus 5 processes and it was a real struggle. Now we have got a situation where everyone agrees there should be a global deal, everyone agrees it should include all the main emitters, America and China particularly, and everyone agrees it should have at its heart a substantial reduction in emissions, and everyone agrees that is of the order of halving emissions by 2050. This is big progress.

Question: But you still couldn't get very clear cut goals.

Blair: I think we did, actually. The American position is a very simple one, which is that it's not prepared to do a deal without China and India in it and they say China and India have not yet agreed. They won't agree till they agree. It's not that America is excluding the possibility that a target of that nature is adopted -- on the contrary. For the first time America is committing to a new agreement, saying it wants to be part of it and saying the agreement will have a substantial binding target in reduction.

Spiegel.de