Translated material
Every warhead counts
Russia is waiting for an invitation to the warehouse from Barack Obama
Russian-American relations have entered a new phase of “reset.” The Kremlin announced an official visit of US President Barack Obama to Russia on July 6-8. 47-year-old Obama was invited to Moscow by his 43-year-old Russian colleague Dmitry Medvedev. Before this, they met on April 1 in London on the eve of a summit to discuss the global economic crisis.Young leaders who are committed to strong business contacts inherited long-standing problems. Some of these issues, such as offensive arms reduction (START), are decades old. The Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed in 1991, expires in December of this year. One of the problems is to develop a new document to replace it. Russian and American experts will hold talks on this next week in Moscow.
The other day, this topic was discussed in the United States by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met in Washington with his colleague Hillary Clinton (according to Vremya Novostey, she will come to Moscow on a return visit in June) and President Barack Obama. During these negotiations, the timing of Obama's arrival in Russia was agreed upon. Sergei Lavrov returned to his homeland yesterday (he canceled the negotiations scheduled for May 12 in Madrid) and upon arrival told the journalists accompanying him that Russia and the United States had “good chances” to “bring their positions closer” and “agree” on START.
The minister also recalled controversial issues. Thus, when reducing nuclear weapons, Moscow proposes to take into account not only operationally deployed warheads, but also those warheads that are in warehouses: “Russia is awaiting US proposals to control warheads in warehouses.” Lavrov said that the positions of the parties will become clearer this month, although “we have not yet reached the substantive part on most issues.”
The American president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, announced that in preparation for his boss's visit to Moscow, more attention will be paid not so much to the organizational side, but to working out the “substantive issues.” He added that Obama would travel to Moscow to “have the pleasure of discussing security issues for our countries and the world.” For Obama, “the very opportunity to demonstrate, first of all, to the Americans themselves, that his foreign policy differs from Bush’s is important,” Maria Lipman, an expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center, explained to VN. “And using the example of Russia, this is even easier to do than using the example of Iran, Iraq or the Middle East.” But our interlocutor retains a degree of skepticism: “Negotiations on arms control were successfully held during the Soviet period, but this did not soften the overall gloomy background of relations between the USSR and the USA. Points of contradiction are the deployment of elements of American missile defense in Europe and the expansion of NATO through the accession of Ukraine and Georgia.”
Members of the Russian delegation, who visited the United States with Lavrov, noted that Barack Obama’s policy in the Middle East differs from that pursued by George Bush. One of the Russian diplomats drew the attention of a VN correspondent to the fact that the American administration has now agreed to seriously discuss the Arab peace initiative put forward in 2002, which was not the case under Bush. The initiative involves improving relations between Arab countries and Israel. To do this, the Jewish state must withdraw from the lands occupied in the 1967 war with the Arabs, allow refugees to return to them, and allow the creation of the state of Palestine.
The topic of the Middle East, Sergei Lavrov is sure, “will take its rightful place” in the negotiations between the two presidents. By that time, they will have to take into account the results of the meeting of the Quartet of Middle Eastern mediators (Russia, the US, the EU and the UN), which could take place as early as June. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon advised “not to postpone this event beyond June”: “The situation in the region is like a bicycle - if you don’t turn the pedals, it falls. Likewise, the situation in the Middle East can easily deteriorate if appropriate efforts are not made.” These words were spoken at a meeting of the UN Security Council, which took place on May 10 in New York under the chairmanship of Sergei Lavrov.