MOSCOW: US President Barack Obama and Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev are to announce a framework deal on arms cuts at a Kremlin summit on Monday but the rest of Obama's first visit as president may prove more difficult.
"The text of the document has been agreed," an unnamed Russian diplomat told the Interfax news agency on Monday. He said the text had been agreed late on Sunday.
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US President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha and Malia (L) board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington before their departure July 5, 2009. Obama is going to visit Russia, Italy and Ghana. [Agencies] |
During two days of talks, officials say Obama will win the Kremlin's consent to ship weapons to NATO forces in Afghanistan across Russian territory and create a joint government commission between Washington and Moscow to improve relations.
Business leaders traveling with Obama want to use the visit to boost trade and investment. Russian trade with the United States was just $36 billion in 2008, the same amount as with Poland.
Obama will also listen to the country's opposition, meet former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and make a major speech to Russian students.
But he faces a harder task in trying to achieve his aim of a "reset" in relations between Washington and Moscow.
The unseasonally cold, rainy, grey skies that awaited Obama and his family in Moscow seemed an appropriate metaphor for the state of relations between the two former Cold War superpowers.
Medvedev has said he is "moderately optimistic" about Obama's visit but the two sides are still deeply divided over US plans to set up an anti-missile system in central Europe, something Russia says threatens its security.
This, as well as Russian resentment at NATO expansion into the former Soviet Union, could yet cast a shadow over the talks.
"Differences over fundamental issues are standing in the way of a complete 'resetting' of relations," the influential Kommersant daily said in a front page report.
"The parties have not yet come to an agreement on such fundamental issues as Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization ... Georgia's territorial integrity and, most importantly, the USA's plans to deploy the elements of its missile defense system in Europe."
A poll released on the eve of Obama's arrival showed the depth of Russian distrust of the United States. The University of Maryland survey found 75 percent of Russians believed the United States abused its greater power and only two percent had "a lot of confidence" Obama would do the right thing in world affairs.
Medvedev, in an interview released on Sunday, said the United States would only get a full arms control treaty with Moscow if it dropped unilateral plans for missile defense.
Obama, in a pre-trip interview with a Russian opposition newspaper, rejected a link between arms control and missile defense but said he would discuss cooperation on the latter issue with Medvedev.
Obama also faces an awkward first meeting on Tuesday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russia's most powerful politician, after publicly criticizing him last week.
Obama, in an interview, said Putin still had one foot mired in Cold War thinking and compared him unfavorably with Medvedev, Putin's chosen successor as president.
Putin hit back, saying Russians "are standing firmly on both feet and always look to the future."
In an indication of the strained atmosphere, Russia's state television channels have played down Obama's visit.
Sunday evening's main Channel One news show did not mention Obama in its main headlines and opened with a lengthy report on Medvedev exhorting Russians to save energy. Rival channel Vesti began its show talking about the death of a folk singer.
"This is being played as essentially a low-key visit that shows the American leadership's respect for the Russian leadership," Dmitry Trenin, head of the Moscow Carnegie Center think tank, said. "This is not some star coming to town."
The Other Russia and Solidarity opposition movements announced plans for a protest rally in central Moscow on Monday evening to coincide with Obama's visit.