President George Bush's senior foreign policy adviser flies to Moscow tomorrow to open talks on offensive and defensive nuclear weapons, following agreement in Genoa by the two leaders to launch such a dialogue.
Mr Bush, who remains determined to press ahead rapidly with his controversial missile defence plans, had promised to try and engage a reluctant Russia in talks over the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM). Yesterday's agreement on the fringes of the G8 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin to link such discussions with talks on reductions of each side's offensive missile stocks will at least allow talks to start.
The US National Security Adviser, Dr Condoleezza Rice, yesterday promised to pursue an aggressive schedule in such discussions, which are traditionally long and difficult.
US officials admit, however, that within months their plans for new missile sites and tests will breach the ABM, and Mr Putin has pledged that unilateral repudiation by the US will lead to Russia increasing the numbers of warheads on its missiles.
Both Dr Rice and Mr Bush left unstated what the US will do if the talks do not produce a deal on time, and in the first domestic political reaction Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, hit out at such ambiguity. "President Bush, by agreeing to this, has implicitly, I assume, signed on to not abandon any ABM Treaty," he said on CNN.
The decision to talk about reductions in missile stockpiles came as no surprise. Mr Putin had already reached a similar understanding with Mr Clinton, and Mr Bush has repeatedly said he believes both countries should agree to further cuts. Mr Putin has suggested cutting about 1,500 units apiece.
Mr Putin said yesterday Mr Bush shares with him a desire to "have large cuts in offensive arms, and together we are going to move forward in this direction". But he made no commitment on ABM beyond a willingness to talk. Earlier, the G8 leaders had ended their three-day Genoa summit with a defiant final communique in which, notwithstanding a weekend marked by the death of a protester and two days of "anti-globalisation" protests and street riots, they stated their belief that globalisation can be made to "work for all our citizens and especially for the world's poor".
The leaders of the US, Russia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the UK put a handsome gloss on the summit, highlighting a range of initiatives including a global fund to fight AIDS, a task force to promote new technologies, as well as programmes on debt relief, food safety and development assistance.
On one key issue, global warming, the leaders failed to agree. A communique paragraph stated that despite current "disagreement on the Kyoto Protocol and its ratification", the G8 were "committed to working intensively together to meet the common objective" of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.