MOSCOW, July 6, 2009
Obama In Russia For Summit
Early Annoucement Expected of Arms Control Progress
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Play CBS Video Video Obama Ready For Trip President Obama is leaving on a weeklong foreign trip that starts in Moscow, goes to Italy, and winds up in West Africa. The first stop will 'reset' relations with Russia. Chip Reid reports.
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President Barack Obama with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, pictured meeting during the G-20 conference in London last April. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
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Presidents Obama and Dmitry Medvedev were ending the seven-year hiatus in U.S.-Russian summitry, with each declaring his determination to further cut nuclear arsenals and repair a badly damaged relationship.
Both sides appear to want to use progress on arms control as a pathway to possible agreement on trickier issues, including Iran and Georgia, the tiny former Soviet republic. Those difficulties and others have soured a promising linkage in the first years after the Cold War and pushed ties between Moscow and Washington to depths unseen in more than two decades.
Mr. Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, arrived in Moscow in earl afternoon, local time.
In advance of Mr. Obama's departure, a White House official told reporters the presidents expect to announce progress on negotiations that could lead to a treaty to replace the START I agreement, which expires Dec. 5.
More broadly, the U.S. wants to use the summit to overhaul the U.S.-Russian relationship.
"It's not, in our view, a zero-sum game, that if it's two points for Russia it's negative two for us, but there are ways that we can cooperate to advance our interests and, at the same time, do things with the Russians that are good for them as well," Mr. Obama's top assistant on Russia, Michael McFaul, said in a presummit briefing.
Medvedev said in an Internet address that the two powers "need new, common, mutually beneficial projects in business, science and culture. He added, "I hope that this sincere desire to open a new chapter in Russian-American cooperation will be brought into fruition."
Two things appear certain:
Those deals could be announced at an Obama-Medvedev news conference Monday afternoon after the leaders' scheduled four-hour meeting.
There's been an apparent hardening on both sides over a proposed U.S. missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. Those differences could stall or even preclude an agreement of strategic nuclear warheads. That could kill the hoped-for extension of those talks next year to include cuts in delivery vehicles: long-range missiles, submarines and bombers.
On Friday, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the current prime minister and former president, said the Kremlin would not negotiate a replacement to START I unless Mr. Obama clarified plans for the defense system to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The U.S. contends it's designed to protect U.S. allies in Europe from a potential nuclear attack by Iran. The Russians see it as a way of weakening their offensive nuclear strike potential that is are arrayed against the U.S. arsenal. Mr. Obama has been cool to the program, which former President George W. Bush pushed hard.
"The whole issue of missile defense from my perspective is focused on defense of Europe," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Obviously, the Russians see it differently. So I think we're going to have to work our way through that."
The White House said Sunday that if an agreement comes too late for Senate ratification by Dec. 5, it would look for ways to enforce some aspects on an executive level while waiting for ratification.
Mr. Obama's schedule include an hourlong meeting with Putin on Tuesday. Protocol does not demand he visit the prime minister.
"Prime Minister Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia, and I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction," Mr. Obama said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.
Most analysts see Putin as still holding the real reins of power in Russia. Mr. Obama said in the interview, "I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new."
Putin responded quickly. "We don't know how to stand so awkwardly with our legs apart," he said in televised remarks. "We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look into the future."
Asked if Mr. Obama's comment could be taken as an insult that could make negotiations even more difficult, a White House official said no, that it puts a little pressure on Putin to show he's a "modern guy," reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Chip Reid.
One of the most difficult issues expected in the Putin meeting is his fierce anger at neighboring Georgia. Last August, he sent soldiers, tanks and warplanes to crush the Georgian military after Georgia's leader sought to retake a breakaway region that wants to reunite with Russia.
Putin appears dead set on re-establishing Russia's power and sphere of influence in the former Soviet republics. At the same time, NATO has expanded eastward to include some of those countries. The alliance also is working with Georgia and Ukraine, another former republic, on possible membership in NATO.
In an interesting scheduling twist, Mr. Obama also is to see former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who negotiated an end of the Cold War with former President Ronald Reagan. There's also to be a second Medvedev meeting after Mr. Obama speaks to new graduates of the New Economic School. It remains unclear if the Russian leaders, who control all television outlets, will allow national broadcast of the speech.
The White House bills the address as the third of four this year on his vision of a new world order. The first was during his visit to the Czech Republic when he laid out a security agenda and concern about nuclear proliferation. After that, he went to Egypt to reach over the heads of leaders of Muslim countries as he sought to improve the U.S. image with the people of the Islamic world.
The last of the foreign policy addresses was planned for Ghana, the final stop on this Obama trip.
Before leaving Washington on Sunday, Mr. Obama spoke by telephone with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who thanked Mr. Obama for his Cairo speech on U.S.-Muslim relations.
The president does face a major challenge in convincing the Russian people that he genuinely wants to use his office for the betterment of the world even as he seeks to promote a U.S. agenda. He is not well-known to the Russians and most polls show a distrust of the American leader. He certainly enjoys none of the vast popularity lavished on him in Europe and many other places.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 36 Comments<a href="http://www.goldcoinsgain.com"> Gold </a>
As for the biden/economy story and posting not allowed, that is a tactic that is reserved for this site and other msm sites.
As for FOX, you can log onto FOXnation and post your heart out on any and all stories. They have an Opinion section on the home page with stories.
But hey, call me hateful but honey, nothing can compare with the vitriol and bile spewed by the left.
Have a GREAT DAY!!
According to our Russian daughter-in-law Moscow has some great shopping but a bit pricey. No problem for the messiah's girls.
I am so proud I could just burst.
Problem solving and resolution skills will do far more than missile shield. When you develope an experimental defense system that you use to solve a conflict, you have great expense to both the domestic economy and global economy alliance, and you still have the problem to solve, and on top of that, a bill to pay for the loan we used to borrow for the missile shield. Many citizens of this nation fail to recall that we are paying today for weapons we bought 25-35 years ago that are already retired were scrapped pennies on the dollar.
However, CBS does **NOT** allow the public to comment on the much more significant story "Biden: We Misread How Bad the Economy Was". WOW. (Hey, people, if you have any doubts now that one group drives both the Democrats and the Republicans, you need to get out more.)
...and CBS doesn't even mention this story from Fox News: "Biden gives Israel apparent green light for military action to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat". WOW. Biden is the U.S. Commander in Chief?!# Where's Obama? Oh, there he is--maintaining his "Blessed are the peacemakers" image in Russia.
It's becoming nothing but tabloid.
And they dont' want ANY criticism of their messiah.
But I sure was happy to see the Father's Day story on the messiah and his kiddies eating custard cones. Or, how about, "What does obama think of Jackson's death".
Now that's news.
The USA will collapse under its own weight like the USSR did.
Obama wants to buddy up to Russia to get ideas about what it will be like.
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So what's your solution - more FREE TRADE? More GLOBALIZATION?
ROTFLMAO! Nope, no ideas out of you.
This news site it turning into total tabloid.
If you want real news, you have to look at the other news sources.
Of course we already know Obama's foreign policy mettle - bow to the Saudi king and "watch very very closely" everything else.
Obama is a total failure.
Obama is the worst president in 100 years.
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And I'm glad I did.
Now the Democrats will get wiped off the map, too.
So where are all YOUR great ideas???
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No, you come in here saying ever single thing AGAINST Obama is wrong.
I haven't seen any ideas out of you yet.
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You just described yourself.
Would you like to borrow my mirror?
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I still haven't heard a constructive suggestion from you, either.
Now, the only out is if you are in one of the unions that your messiah is beholding to. If you are, you are just ducky and it is the rest of us jerks that pay the way.
So, continue to look at your socialist world through those rose colored glasses, continue to hate conservatives, hold that pitchfork tight in your hand, put on your Community Activists International hoodie and drink some more koolaid.
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You just described yourself.
Look who's talking.
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Go back and check.
EVERY ONE of your posts is insulting and disagreeing with somebody.
And you're still doing it.
Hopefully he gave him an iPod just chock full of the messiah's droning speeches. Yea, that will be good for relations.
Say, is the missus and the little obamaites going shopping in Russia?? Are they going to visit their daddy's homeland of Kenya? Are they going to meet their uncle George?
Wow, what a family reunion that would be, what photo ops for the fawning media.
Hopefully he gave him an iPod just chock full of the messiah's droning speeches. Yea, that will be good for relations.
Say, is the missus and the little obamaites going shopping in Russia?? Are they going to visit their daddy's homeland of Kenya? Are they going to meet their uncle George?
Wow, what a family reunion that would be, what photo ops for the fawning media.
He cut missile defense spending while Russia is ramping up spending for their military. You are so stupid, so dumb, so blind it's disgusting.
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So you admit Obama is a bad as Bush.
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Then why did you just blame the past 8 years on Bush/Cheney?
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