Bush offers Obama advice on handling Russia

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Preparing to leave office, President George W. Bush on Thursday advised his successor to try to stay friends with Russia despite disagreements.

"There's common interest and there's going to be a lot of tensions," Bush said at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.

"The president has got to be in a position where he can deal with those tensions in a way that doesn't send chilling signals with other allies."

While not mentioning President-elect Barack Obama directly, Bush has spent his final weeks emphasizing efforts he says his successor should continue. Obama will be sworn in on January 20.

Bush famously said after meeting then-President Vladimir Putin in 2001 that he trusted the Russian leader after gaining a "sense of his soul."

Putin, who is now prime minister but still thought to effectively run the country, later clashed with Bush on several issues and took steps U.S. officials saw as counter to democratic reforms.

Washington and Moscow have sparred over the Iraq war, a U.S. missile defense system for Europe and Russia's war with Georgia in August.

They coordinated efforts to offer Iran civil nuclear energy while trying to prevent Tehran from developing atomic weapons, but Russia has blocked U.S. efforts to ratchet up United Nations sanctions against Iran.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by Alan Elsner)