H2O3C4Nitrogen
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2007
- Messages
- 4,386
- Reaction score
- 0
Heat rises as Russia awaits Obama
By Stefan Wagstyl in Moscow
Published: July 4 2009 03:00 | Last updated: July 4 2009 03:00
A spat over the cold war yesterday between President Barack Obama of the US and Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, raised tensions before next week's US-Russia summit.
In a television interview before his meetings with Mr Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Obama said: "It's important that even as we move forward with President Med-ved-ev, Putin understands that the old cold-war app-roach to US-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction. I think Medvedev understands that; I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new."
Mr Putin hit back, saying it was the US that was stuck in the cold war, having failed to fulfil promises to repeal the JacksonVannick amendment, trade legislation linked to the emigration of Soviet Jews.
"We cannot stand with our legs apart," he said. "We are standing firmly on our feet and we always look to the future." But Mr Putin added he was still looking forward to meeting Mr Obama, clearly not wishing to let the odd insult spoil the summit.
For Russia, the event itself is almost as important as its content. A US-Russia summit is a reminder of the era when such meetings proclaimed the dominance of the two superpowers. As one western diplomat said, the summit is, for Moscow, about "status, -status, status".
Russian commentators have been talking up the visit as a chance to revive relations with the US following recent conflicts, not least over last summer's Georgian war. Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian parliament's upper house, said: "Two new presidents representing a new generation, which is not inflicted with a cold- war mentality, have a chance to improve things."
But behind the rhetoric, Russian policy is grounded in a deep sense of grievance that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the west cheated Moscow by failing to honour promises to keep its military out of eastern Europe. Russian officials say their protests at Nato's enlargement and, recently, at US plans for missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, have been ignored.
The Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, a Kremlin-linked think-tank, says Russia should seize the opportunities created by the economic context and what it calls a crisis in US global leadership to show that Washington needs Moscow, as well as Bejing, to create a stable new political order.
So, Russia is approaching the summit in prickly mood. On the one hand, it has welcomed Mr Obama's initiative to "reset" the bilateral relationship and Nato's move to resume military co-operation with Moscow, interrupted by the Georgian war. On the other, it ostentatiously staged a Bric countries summit, hosting Brazil, China and India, and shocked observers by pulling out of talks to join the World Trade Organisation, after 16 years of talks. Now it is provocatively holding military exercises in the north Caucasus.
The summit's centrepiece is plans for a nuclear arms control treaty to replace the 1991 Start I pact before its December expiry. Both sides agree on cuts in warheads from the current 1,700-2,200, perhaps to about 1,500, but there is much detail to settle, including an inspections regime. The two presidents are likely to issue a memorandum calling for further negotiations.
A key issue remains unresolved, however. Russia wants the pact to cover all strategic weapons, including the planned US anti-missile defence system, because of the "indissoluble connection" between offensive and defensive weapons.
The US is reviewing missile defence, on the grounds of cost and effectiveness but, in the meantime, it is rejecting Russia's demands. US officials said this week there would be no "trade" between the strategic arms treaty and missile defence.
Russia also wants the US to acknowledge its claims to primacy in the former Soviet Union. Moscow is pushing a pan-European security treaty that would ban new military alliances or the extension of existing ones - an effort to stop Nato's eastward expansion for good. Mr Obama has tacitly postponed plans to bring Georgia and Ukraine into Nato but he will not have the US explicitly bound in this manner.
Elsewhere, Russia is preparing to accede to US requests for extra help in transporting military supplies to Afghanistan. On other matters of grave concern to Washington - Iran, the Middle East and North Korea - the summit will probably see only general agreements to co-operate.
As Sergei Prikhodko, the Kremlin's chief foreign policy adviser, said yesterday: "The question is whether we want to expand mutual understanding or defend our own positions."
For the moment, both sides are edging along the line of mutual understanding but, as the Obama-Putin exchanges show, they are not finding it too easy.
FT.com / UK - Heat rises as Russia awaits Obama
By Stefan Wagstyl in Moscow
Published: July 4 2009 03:00 | Last updated: July 4 2009 03:00
A spat over the cold war yesterday between President Barack Obama of the US and Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, raised tensions before next week's US-Russia summit.
In a television interview before his meetings with Mr Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Obama said: "It's important that even as we move forward with President Med-ved-ev, Putin understands that the old cold-war app-roach to US-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction. I think Medvedev understands that; I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new."
Mr Putin hit back, saying it was the US that was stuck in the cold war, having failed to fulfil promises to repeal the JacksonVannick amendment, trade legislation linked to the emigration of Soviet Jews.
"We cannot stand with our legs apart," he said. "We are standing firmly on our feet and we always look to the future." But Mr Putin added he was still looking forward to meeting Mr Obama, clearly not wishing to let the odd insult spoil the summit.
For Russia, the event itself is almost as important as its content. A US-Russia summit is a reminder of the era when such meetings proclaimed the dominance of the two superpowers. As one western diplomat said, the summit is, for Moscow, about "status, -status, status".
Russian commentators have been talking up the visit as a chance to revive relations with the US following recent conflicts, not least over last summer's Georgian war. Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian parliament's upper house, said: "Two new presidents representing a new generation, which is not inflicted with a cold- war mentality, have a chance to improve things."
But behind the rhetoric, Russian policy is grounded in a deep sense of grievance that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the west cheated Moscow by failing to honour promises to keep its military out of eastern Europe. Russian officials say their protests at Nato's enlargement and, recently, at US plans for missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, have been ignored.
The Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, a Kremlin-linked think-tank, says Russia should seize the opportunities created by the economic context and what it calls a crisis in US global leadership to show that Washington needs Moscow, as well as Bejing, to create a stable new political order.
So, Russia is approaching the summit in prickly mood. On the one hand, it has welcomed Mr Obama's initiative to "reset" the bilateral relationship and Nato's move to resume military co-operation with Moscow, interrupted by the Georgian war. On the other, it ostentatiously staged a Bric countries summit, hosting Brazil, China and India, and shocked observers by pulling out of talks to join the World Trade Organisation, after 16 years of talks. Now it is provocatively holding military exercises in the north Caucasus.
The summit's centrepiece is plans for a nuclear arms control treaty to replace the 1991 Start I pact before its December expiry. Both sides agree on cuts in warheads from the current 1,700-2,200, perhaps to about 1,500, but there is much detail to settle, including an inspections regime. The two presidents are likely to issue a memorandum calling for further negotiations.
A key issue remains unresolved, however. Russia wants the pact to cover all strategic weapons, including the planned US anti-missile defence system, because of the "indissoluble connection" between offensive and defensive weapons.
The US is reviewing missile defence, on the grounds of cost and effectiveness but, in the meantime, it is rejecting Russia's demands. US officials said this week there would be no "trade" between the strategic arms treaty and missile defence.
Russia also wants the US to acknowledge its claims to primacy in the former Soviet Union. Moscow is pushing a pan-European security treaty that would ban new military alliances or the extension of existing ones - an effort to stop Nato's eastward expansion for good. Mr Obama has tacitly postponed plans to bring Georgia and Ukraine into Nato but he will not have the US explicitly bound in this manner.
Elsewhere, Russia is preparing to accede to US requests for extra help in transporting military supplies to Afghanistan. On other matters of grave concern to Washington - Iran, the Middle East and North Korea - the summit will probably see only general agreements to co-operate.
As Sergei Prikhodko, the Kremlin's chief foreign policy adviser, said yesterday: "The question is whether we want to expand mutual understanding or defend our own positions."
For the moment, both sides are edging along the line of mutual understanding but, as the Obama-Putin exchanges show, they are not finding it too easy.
FT.com / UK - Heat rises as Russia awaits Obama
