Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, setting off from Andrews air force base for Moscow. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Medvedev seeks to tie arms reduction treaty to US missile defence, ahead of Obama's first presidential trip to Moscow
Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, setting off from Andrews air force base for Moscow. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Barack Obama is due to arrive in Moscow today for his first trip to Russia as US president, amid dwindling hopes of a breakthrough deal on nuclear weapons.
The summit's centrepiece is supposed to be a groundbreaking pact on nuclear arms reduction, but Russia said there could be no agreement unless the US was prepared to heed its concerns on missile defence.
Obama and the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed during their last meeting in April to hold talks on a successor treaty to the 1991 Start-1 pact, which expires in December. But attempts to reach a deal appear to have come unstuck over the same problem that defeated the Bush administration: the Kremlin's unbending hostility to the Pentagon's planned missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
While Obama has agreed to review the plan, he is not prepared to abandon it. Yesterday Medvedev said any new arms reduction treaty was definitively "linked" to the US's missile defence ambitions in central Europe.
"We consider these issues are interconnected," he said. "It is sufficient to show restraint and show an ability to compromise. And then we can agree on the basis of a new deal on Start."
Medevedev's comments place Obama in an uncomfortable position on one of the biggest foreign policy trips of his presidency. If he makes concessions he risks a political backlash at home and the charge of capitulation. If he doesn't, he may emerge from the US-Russia summit no more successful than George Bush.
Russian officials revealed that they had not been able to reach agreement on a "framework document" setting out a blueprint for nuclear talks – an ominous sign. Obama, however, made clear his determination to improve relations.
"I believe that Americans and Russians have many common interests, interests that our governments have not pursued as actively as we could have," he told the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
On Tuesday he will meet Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister and the man who most people believe still runs the country. Obama described Putin slightingly last week as having "one foot in the past".
In his interview, Obama acknowledged "Russian sensitivities" over the shield, but said it was needed to protect the US and Europe from a nuclear-armed Iranian missile. He made clear he would not accept Moscow's linkage between arms control and missile defence, a statement that suggests there is little prospect of a rapid breakthrough.
Analysts said there were profound, irreconcilable differences between both sides, not just over the shield but also on technical issues including counting, verification and delivery systems.
"It requires a miracle to resolve these differences," said Sergey Rogov, director of the US and Canadian Institute in Moscow.
The US and Russia account for more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons. They have agreed in principle to reduce their nuclear warheads below the 2,000 agreed in the Start treaty to 1,500-1,700 each. But they have not been able to agree on a reduction in delivery systems, which include intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles or heavy bombers.
According to Rogov, Russia wants to reduce the number of launchers to 600. The US is insisting on around 1,000. Additionally, Moscow is against the US having what it calls a "return potential", which would allow nuclear weapons scrapped by the US to be redeployed in the event of a nuclear crisis. "I'm not sure Obama understands it," Rogov said.
Writing last week in Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow defence analyst Pavel Felgenhaur predicted the summit would be a failure. He said the Russian government, emboldened by the recent oil price rise, expected the US to make "one-sided" concessions while making none itself.
During his two-and-a-half day trip to Moscow, Obama is expected to seek Russia's co-operation on Iran, and support for a stronger sanctions regime against North Korea. Yesterday, however, Medevev hailed Iran as a "major partner".
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