Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that arms control would be a priority topic when he meets this week with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 20).
(Mar. 2) -
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is set to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week (Yuri Kadobnov/Getty Images).
U.S. President Barack Obama has indicated he favors steep reductions in the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States, along with nonproliferation initiatives such as ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and establishment of a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
The pact, which limits U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles, expires in December.
Washington should have a group of arms control negotiators in place before long, Lavrov said. He is set to meet with Clinton in Geneva (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 28).
Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that he is waiting to see how the Obama administration deals with its predecessor's plan to deploy missile defense systems in Europe, Agence France-Presse reported today.
The program, which called for fielding 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic, was a major source of tension between Moscow and Washington near the end of the Bush administration. Medvedev went so far as to threaten to deploy short-range missiles near Poland if the plan became reality.
"Russia does not like this, that is absolutely clear," Medvedev said in an interview posted yesterday on the Kremlin Web site.
The Obama administration has not formally declared its intentions on the European missile shield (see GSN, Feb. 26).
“I am counting on the new U.S. administration behaving on this question in a more creative and friendly way,” Medvedev said. “We have already received positive signals from our American colleagues. I am expecting that these signals will turn into concrete proposals" (Agence France-Presse/Tehran Times, March 2).