MOSCOW: US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a preliminary agreement on Monday to reduce the world’s two largest nuclear stockpiles by as much as a third, down to the lowest levels of any US-Russia accord, and to counter what Obama called “a sense of drift” in the two countries’ relations.
“We must lead by example, and that’s what we are doing here today,” Obama declared in a Kremlin hall glittering in gold. “We resolve to reset US-Russian relations so that we can cooperate more effectively in areas of common interest.”
The document signed by the two leaders at a Moscow summit, Obama’s first in Russia, is meant as a guide for negotiators as the nations work toward a replacement pact for the START arms control agreement that expires in December.
The joint understanding also commits the countries to lower longer-range missiles for delivering nuclear bombs to between 500 and 1,100. The limit for warheads would be in a range of 1,500 to 1,675 each. However, there are disagreements on what to count.
Medvedev called Monday’s agreement a “reasonable compromise.” A White House statement said the new treaty “will include effective verification measures” and Obama said it would be completed by the end of the year.
He also held out hope to “move even beyond that in subsequent agreements and treaties” and said he wanted to host a summit on global nuclear security next year in the United States.
Among the side deals meant to sweeten Obama’s two days of talks here and show progress toward improving badly damaged US-Russian relations was permission from Moscow for the United States to transport arms across its land and airspace into Afghanistan for the war there. Obama said the deal will save the US “both time and money,” to the tune of $133 million a year, by waiving transit fees and shortening flying time.
They outlined other areas in which they said their countries would work together to help stabilize Afghanistan, including increasing assistance to the Afghan Army and police, and training counternarcotics personnel.
Among other agreements was the resumption of military cooperation, suspended after Russia invaded neighboring Georgia last August and sent relations into a nosedive.
The leaders also promised fresh cooperation on public health issues and revived a joint commission to try to account for missing service members of both countries dating back to World War II. The commission was first created by President George H.W. Bush and President Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s, but the Russians later downgraded their participation. The US hope is that the Russians will now open some of their more sensitive archives to US researchers seeking details about missing American servicemen. The two sides remained stalemated over the US pursuit of a missile-defense system in Europe. Obama repeated the US position that the planned system is aimed at intercepting missiles from Iran and has nothing to do with countering “a mighty Russian arsenal,” as many in Russia suspect.
