Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed optimism Friday that relations with the United States could be improved, while one of his top officials appeared to connect any future nuclear arms reductions to U.S. missile defense plans, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, March 20).
Medvedev met in Moscow with a group of former U.S. officials who sought to encourage the Kremlin's cooperation with the Obama administration to negotiate a successor pact to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which is due to expire in December. Hopes for substantive agreement have been raised following U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden's call last month "to press the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations (see GSN, Feb. 9).
"The surprising term 'reset' ... really reflects the essence of the transformations we would like to see," Medvedev said after meeting with the U.S. group. "We are counting on a reset. I hope it will take place."
The U.S visitors included former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn.
"We come away very hopeful ... that our two presidents are going to make very substantial progress," Nunn said Friday. Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama are scheduled to meet next month in London (Philip Pan, Washington Post, March 21).
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov made it clear that the question of nuclear reductions and U.S. missile defenses are "inextricably linked," the Associated Press reported.
Moscow objected vigorously to Bush administration plans to deploy U.S. missile defenses in Europe, arguing that such systems threatened Russia's strategic weapons. U.S. officials countered that the missile interceptors were intended only to counter a growing Iranian missile threat.
The Obama administration has not yet stated whether it plans to continue with the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, but it has suggested that the plans could be more easily dropped if Russia helps to curb Iran's nuclear and missile ambitions (see related GSN story, today).
Despite the continuing uncertainty, Ryabkov appeared hopeful for progress.
"We are certain that the low point of this period of chill in our relations is behind us," he said. "The reset ... really has begun" (Mansur Mirovalev, Associated Press/Google News, March 21).
[Editor's Note: Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]