Putin has 'one foot in old ways,' Obama says

WASHINGTON — On the eve of a trip to Moscow, President Barack Obama chided Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday for keeping "one foot in the old ways of doing business." By contrast, he said Putin's handpicked successor as president understands that Cold War behavior is outdated.

In a White House interview with The Associated Press, the president said he will meet with both Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev on his trip, in hopes they can "move in concert in cooperating with us on some critical issues."

On an important domestic issue, Obama said the Supreme Court was "moving the ball" on affirmative action in this week's decision favoring white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., but he added that the court had not ruled out the use of racial preferences. "I don't think that hiring on the basis of race ... alone is constitutionally plausible," said Obama, a former teacher of constitutional law.

He spoke sympathetically at one point of the white firefighters, who said they had been discriminated against, and he added, "I've always believed that affirmative action was less of an issue or should be less of an issue than it has been made out to be in news reports."

Nearing the end of his first six months in office, the president said he had made some progress in stabilizing the economy, but he conceded too many jobs are still being lost.

He also expressed concern about his own policy on dealing with the prisoners now held at Guantanamo Bay, saying the idea of retaining at least some of the detainees indefinitely in different locations gives him pause. But he did not rule out issuing an executive order to that effect if Congress refuses to pass legislation.

Scheduled to depart next week on a trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana, Obama praised Moscow for its cooperation in attempting to persuade North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear development programs. The United Nations recently approved "the most robust sanction regime that we've ever seen with respect to North Korea," he said.

The president said his agenda in Russia includes talks on a new treaty to curtail long-range nuclear missiles.

Asked why he intends to meet with Putin, Obama said the former president "still has a lot of sway ... and I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev that Putin understand that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated — that's it's time to move forward in a different direction."