U.S., Russia agree to cut nuclear weapons arsenals

It's remarkable to see how much the world has changed in the past few decades. Not so long ago, an agreement to reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia would have been greeted by celebrations, especially across Europe. Yet this week, a treaty signing that would do precisely that barely was noticed in the United States. Yes, it's true, it took some personal diplomacy involving U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, but a deal between the world's most nuclear-armed nations to cut weapons stockpiles by a third was signed Thursday in Prague, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Obama called the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) an indication of the two countries' commitment to "responsible global leadership" while Medvedev called it a "win-win situation" for both countries. "This day demonstrates the determination of the United States and Russia -- the two nations that hold over 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons -- to pursue responsible global leadership," Obama said Thursday. "Together, we are keeping our commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which must be the foundation for global nonproliferation." Medvedev, too, acknowledged the potentially historic impacts of the new treaty. "This agreement enhances strategic ability and, at the same time, allows us to rise to a higher level of cooperation between Russia and the United States," Medvedev said. For U.S. residents who remember the days when public buildings had fallout shelters and schoolchildren participated in fallout shelter drills, the agreement is a welcome sign of real progress since the Cold War between the United States and the old Soviet Union. Of course, the new agreement is merely a continuation of the previous START deal that expired in December, and still leaves both countries with more than 1,000 nuclear warheads. Just as important in the short term, perhaps, Obama and Medvedev also discussed other related issues, such as developing nuclear power Iran, before the signing ceremony, CNN said. The weapons reduction agreement is still subject to ratification by each country's legislature. Obama and Medvedev wrapped up the new agreement shortly before the scheduled start of a global nuclear security summit in Washington on Monday.

U.S. and Russia appear on verge of nuclear arms reduction deal

With Western nations focused on emerging nuclear powers North Korea and Iran, word from Washington on Wednesday that the United States and Russia are on the verge of reaching a new agreement to reduce the world's largest nuclear arsenals comes as quite a surprise. But it's a good surprise for a change. Officials from both countries say U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have managed a way around the last remaining obstacle to a deal to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 that expired in December, according to the New York Times. The two leaders reportedly need one more meeting to finalize the new agreement, which would require their countries to reduce warheads and launchers by more than 25 percent, the Times said. The White House and the Kremlin declined to comment on the reports, but officials on both sides confirmed the breakthrough on the condition of anonymity, the newspaper said. A signing ceremony is planned in Prague early next month. The deal caps a year of sometimes problematic negotiations that was originally intended to wrap up a new deal by the end of 2009. But the talks got hung up on verification, sharing information and limits on missile defense systems, the Times said, even though Obama agreed not to construct a planned European-based missile shield authorized by his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. The planned Prague ceremony would help jump-start an international summit on nuclear nonproliferation that Obama has scheduled for April 12 and 13 in Washington, the Times said.

Russia moves toward backing sanctions against Iran

Just when it seemed that international efforts to convince Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program were failing comes word that Russia was dissatisfied with Tehran's level of cooperation and might be willing to support sanctions in the future. Speaking to the press following a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just outside Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country did not rule out the possibility that sanctions could be necessary to convince Iran to stop trying to develop nuclear weaponry, according to the Reuters international news service. Lavrov said reports from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that Iran did not appear to be close to developing such weapons at this time. "The reports that the IAEA director-general publishes on a regular basis contain very precise assessments that do not give reason for any sort of alarm," Lavrov said. "But that does not mean that we are satisfied with Iranian actions. What we see is that they are letting the opportunity to establish normal, systematic, mutually beneficial dialogue with the international community slip away." U.S. officials have been trying to convince the UN Security Council to agree to impose severe international sanctions on Iran's Islamic government, with which it has exchanged threatening dialogue over the past few years. Iran has threatened to attack Israel, a close U.S. ally, and has been involved in sharp public exchanges with both countries over the years since the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. But both Russia and China will have to agree before the Security Council can impose new sanctions on Iran. "As President Medvedev has said, sanctions rarely work, but situations can arise when they are unavoidable, and we do not rule out that such a situation may arise in relation to Iran," Lavrov said, according to a Reuters report citing the Interfax news agency.

Unrest in former Soviet republic of Dagestan spins out of control

No wonder the Russians are more interested in getting along with the West nowadays, certainly a lot more than in the days of the Soviet Union. Word comes from Dagestan that accelerating violence in the Caspian Sea republic could force Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to get further involved by appointing a strong leader to quell growing clan warfare and Islamic insurgent activity, like his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, did after years of conflict in nearby Chechnaya. Last week in Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital, for example, police were forced to close streets to protect against suicide bombers in districts that lost power and water, according to the New York Times. The vice speaker of Dagestan's parliament narrowly escaped assassination last week when a passing car opened fire with automatic weapons, the Times said. “In Dagestan, the problem is that there is a loss of control that is moving toward violence of another kind, which is stronger and stronger, and spiced with Islamic fundamentalism," said Pavel Baev, a senior researcher at the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute, told the Times. “There is no other kind of order. Only the fundamentalists can present themselves as honest men.” Worse, still, perhaps, is the general cynicism of a population frustrated by corruption and their government's seeming inability to control the country, a part of the Russian Federation since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Times said. Armored vehicles and bodyguards have become commonplace on the streets as a result of the rising violence. "People have no hope in law enforcement or in other protection or in justice anymore, said Magomed-Rasul Omarov, the press secretary for Dagestan's top Muslim religious leader told the Times. “If one case was brought to justice, you could say there was some hope.” Instead of becoming an economic powerhouse with its abundant natural resources and miles of Caspian Sea coastline, Dagestan has become economically dependent on money from Moscow. "You can't develop tourism when you have a murder every day," said Said Amirov, the mayor of Makhachkala, who is confined to a wheelchair after an assassination attempt. Making matters worse, the failure of civil society is causing more and more young people to turn to Islamic extremism, the Times said.

Kremlin says U.S. and Russia to sign weapons-reduction deal in December

Anybody still remember the Cold War? Remember air-raid sirens and fallout shelter drills? Remember Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saying "We will bury you?" Remember the Soviet Union? Those days were brought to mind Friday when Russia said it expected to sign a new agreement with the United States to destroy a portion of the two countries' arsenals of thousands of nuclear weapons, according to the Reuters international news service. The new deal, designed to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that expires Dec. 5, got a boost in April when Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama issued a joint statement about reaching a new agreement and again in July when the two agreed to cut their arsenals by a third. Diplomatic frictions that damaged Russia-U.S. relations were relaxed in September when Obama said he would roll back plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe, even though outstanding issues from Russia's brief war with U.S. ally Georgia remain unresolved. Today's report was attributed by Reuters to an unnamed source in Minsk, where Medvedev was meeting with regional leaders. "This treaty is a great move ahead and will improve relations between the United States and Russia," Roland Timerbayev, a former Soviet ambassador and nuclear arms negotiator, told Reuters. But both sides said it is possible that they will not be able to reach a deal before the Dec. 5 expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. "The delegations of Russia and the United States are working incessantly but not looking at the time," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "The timeframe for signing new agreement is important but does not define the negotiating process; rather, (the process is defined) by the striving of the leaders of Russia and the United States to agree a full, properly working bilateral agreement." Diplomats from both countries say continuing cooperation between Russia and the United States on dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions have helped them to resolve remaining issues on a new treaty.

From Russia with love?

Was Russian President Dmitiri Medvedev sending a peace message to Washington as one of his top diplomats threatened economic sanctions against companies that sell weapons to Georgia? In a television interview broadcast Sunday, after U.S. President Joe Biden's visit to former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine, Medvedev referred to both states as independent "countries," according to the New York Times, even though Russia has vociferously opposed their efforts to join the Western alliance. Medvedev acknowledged his country's desire for "normal, working, friendly relations with the United States -- mutually beneficial relations" in the interview with Russian television station NTV, the Times said. On Friday, just as Biden returned from a visit to Georgia and Ukraine, Dmitri Rogozin, Russia's envoy to NATO, said Medvedev had decreed that sanctions would be imposed on any company that helped the two former Soviet republics rebuild their military arsenals. Georgia's armed forces were routed last year in a brief war with Russia over two provinces that broke away from Tblisi. Many observers speculated at the time that Russia's anger over the two country's bids for NATO membership was actually the reason for the war. Of course, Biden did not specifically promise military aid, even though such an arrangement would seem logical, but assured Georgia and Ukraine that the United States would not abandon them if it got friendlier with Russia, the Times said. Adding to the drama, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Thursday that the United States was committed to upgrading the Georgian military to NATO standards, the Times said. So it seems that Medvedev was trying to defuse the obvious friction when he told NTV that better relations between Russia and the United States would not cause "deterioration of our ties with other countries or of U.S. relations with some other countries, including Ukraine and Georgia.” Then again, Medvedev did not explain why Moscow has not withdrawn its troops from Georgian territory as required by the accord that ended last year's war.

Surprise -- U.S. and Russia discuss peaceful cooperation

Finally, signs of civility in the relationship between the United States and Russia. U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed Wednesday to press for a new nuclear disarmament agreement and to try to get along in solving pressing world issues. The leaders' joint statement said they expect some results by July, when Obama is scheduled to visit Moscow, according to the Reuters international news service. "In the past years, there were strains in relations between our two countries and they were drifting in the wrong direction," Medvedev said to reporters at the G20 economic summit in London. "This was not in the interests of the United States, Russia or global stability. We agreed to open a new page in these relations, to reset them, given the joint responsibilities of our states for the situation in the world." Obama promised "constructive dialog" with Medvedev on counter-terrorism and economic stability, in addition to nuclear proliferation. "The new agreement will mutually enhance the security of the parties and predictability and stability in strategic offensive forces," they said in a joint statement. "We are ready to move beyond Cold War mentalities and chart a fresh start in relations between our two countries." Relations between the nuclear superpowers have been damaged the past few years by differences over Russia's war with neighboring Georgia and a U.S. plan to build a nuclear shield in Eastern Europe. Obama and Medvedev also agreed to work together on the future of Afghanistan, relations with Iran and dealing with North Korea's planned rocket launch.