PRAGUE AGENDA:US PRESIDENT Barack Obama returns to Prague today to fulfil a pledge to reduce the global threat of nuclear weapons and to "reset" relations with Russia.
In a major speech in the Czech capital last April, Mr Obama stated “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” and vowed to hammer out a new pact with the Kremlin to replace the now expired 1991 strategic arms reduction treaty (Start).
The signing of that new agreement with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev will be the centrepiece of Mr Obama’s stay in Prague and will serve both as proof of his determination to fulfil last year’s promise and as a launch pad for talks on further cuts to arsenals of atomic weapons.
The meeting of the two leaders will also add momentum to efforts to improve ties between their countries, at a time when Washington is eager to enlist Moscow’s support in pressing for tougher action against Iran and North Korea over their contentious nuclear programmes.
Fresh from pushing through major health reform at home, the new Start treaty will burnish Mr Obama’s foreign policy credentials and help blunt criticism over his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded partly for his professed determination to eradicate nuclear arms.
Today’s events in the lavish surroundings of Prague Castle come amid an intense period of activity on Mr Obama’s atomic agenda: on Wednesday he unveiled a new policy restricting US use of nuclear weapons, and next week hosts a 47-nation summit on halting nuclear proliferation.
A year of talks on the new Start pact were dogged by Russian fears over US plans for a missile defence system in Europe, which the Pentagon insists is needed to thwart the danger of rocket attack from Iran.
Moscow is more comfortable with Mr Obama’s missile defence project than it was with the grander designs of his predecessor, George W Bush, but it has still threatened to withdraw from Start if the central-Europe-based system compromises Russia’s own nuclear deterrent.
Before becoming president, Mr Obama was deeply sceptical about the need for missile defence, but it is a favoured project of more hawkish elements of his own administration and the Republicans whose support he seeks to ensure Start is smoothly ratified by the US Senate.
In his meeting with Mr Medvedev, Mr Obama is expected to reiterate that missile defence is not intended to threaten Russia, and that the new Start treaty should not be seen as a conclusion but only a first step in reducing the deadly stockpiles of the two nuclear superpowers.
He will also seek to convince his Russian counterpart to support tougher UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Moscow has significant clout in Iran, where it has built, but so far declined to launch, a new nuclear reactor. Mr Obama is expected to press Chinese president Hu Jintao on the same issue at next week’s nuclear security summit.
On the eve of his arrival in Prague, Mr Medvedev laid out part of his own agenda and vision for overcoming the legacy of the Cold War. He called for the creation of a new transatlantic security treaty that would boost Moscow’s global influence while putting the brakes on Nato’s eastward expansion around Russia’s borders.
The treaty would prohibit signatories from taking action that would “affect significantly” the security of any other party to the pact – potentially giving the Kremlin a veto over US missile defence in Europe and the Nato membership ambitions of ex-Soviet states like Georgia.
“The Russian proposal . . . is meant to put a definite end to the Cold War period and anchor the principle of indivisible security,” Mr Medvedev wrote in a Slovak newspaper this week.
“In practice, it means that states and international organisations cannot strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other countries or organisations.”
Such restrictions would be unacceptable to the US and its allies. To allay fears in central and eastern Europe that local interests could be sacrificed to Washington’s bid to improve relations with Russia, Mr Obama will meet 11 leaders from across the region.