US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Moscow Tuesday for a two-day visit to Russia to prepare for a summit between US President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
 
Rice is in town to meet top Russian officials ahead of the meeting early next month between Putin and Bush, who is due to attend celebrations in Moscow on May 9 marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Rice will meet Putin and hold talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko.

Rice's arrival was shadowed by a bomb threat at her hotel. Russian news agencies quoted police officials as saying they received a report about a bomb planted in the Renaissance Hotel in central Moscow, where Rice was due to stay.

Rice was diverted to the residence of the US ambassador to Russia and her delegation was given the "all-clear" after Russian authorities searched the hotel and found no explosives there.

"Police officers with trained dogs have examined the place. They did not find anything suspicious," a Moscow police official was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying.

A US official who requested anonymity said Rice's team has got the "all-clear" to go to the hotel and Rice was attending a dinner with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov as scheduled.

The schedule of Rice's Moscow visit has not been altered, a US embassy official was quoted by Interfax as saying.

From Moscow, Rice will travel on to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius to attend a regular foreign ministers' meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as meetings of the NATO-Russia Council and the NATO-Ukraine Commission.

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2005)