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Obama,Medvedevaim for nuclear arms treaty

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McClatchy-Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 6, 2009

MOSCOW - Before President Barack Obama had even arrived here for this week's nuclear arms talks, administration officials Sunday were predicting a joint announcement from Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that the two sides are making strides toward an arms reduction treaty.

Significant obstacles remain, however, and in the same breath, White House officials downplayed expectations for the summit scheduled to take place Monday.

In an interview with Russian television broadcast over the weekend, Obama said only that he hopes to win agreement on the "framework" of a treaty. He also emphasized the importance of sending a message of general agreement as the two sides work toward crafting a strategic arms-reduction treaty to replace the pact that expires in December.

"For us to send a strong signal that we want to reduce our stockpiles I think would help us internationally, to give people a sense that we're moving into a new era and we want to get beyond the Cold War," Obama said in an interview with ITAR-TASS TV.

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Gary Samore, the White House point man on weapons of mass destruction, said he expects Obama and Medvedev will announce progress after their meeting. But he acknowledged a major point of contention is the continued U.S. movement toward construction of a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russian officials consider that a stumbling block to the pact.

Indeed, Samore spoke of the missile shield in terms of an ongoing debate, referring to the "very good argument" the United States has to make to the Russians about why they shouldn't feel threatened by the missile defense project.

"Our current missile defense, as you know, is designed exclusively to deal with threats from countries like North Korea and Iran," Samore said. "We don't believe that it poses a threat to Russian strategic systems."

The Russians still have to be convinced of that, he said, "so obviously parallel to these strategic arms talks we've had discussions with the Russians about missile defense in order, we hope, to demonstrate to them that what we're doing on missile defense doesn't pose a threat to their nuclear deterrent."

Medvedev, in weekend interviews, did not sound open to the argument that the shield was meant to protect against North Korea and Iran.

"In terms of missile defense, Poland and the Czech Republic are one thing, Iran is a different one altogether," Medvedev said. "They are too far apart geographically."

As a sign of reconciliation, Kremlin officials signaled they will formalize plans this week to allow the United States to use Russian airspace to reach forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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