US: There is a very high possibility that the US and Russia will be able to sign off on a nuclear arms reduction agreement when the countries' leaders meet on May 23rd, Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, said yesterday.
Speaking to journalists after meetings here with President Bush and the Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, Mr Ivanov said, "We proceed from the premise that there is a very high probability for agreement and we will do everything that we can to achieve that."
Mr Powell said while there had been some progress, there were still some unresolved issues. A spokesman for Mr Bush said the President was "hopeful" but that there were still "a series of issues, some of which are legal".
But the administration is keen to get a deal, not least because it could be used to demonstrate Mr Bush's diplomacy credentials.
At stake is how to express the cuts in long-range warheads agreed between Mr Bush and President Putin when they met in November - from 6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next decade in the US case, while Russia reduces its own stock to 1,500.
The US Administration wants to put its decommissioned missiles into store for possible redeployment in an emergency. The Russians say that undermines the whole purpose of any agreement and want to see missiles destroyed.
Mr Ivanov said on Wednesday night that Moscow and Washington have two major documents in preparation. One involves the nuclear arms reductions, and the second would set terms for new strategic relations between the US and Russia.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that NATO leaders were also on the verge of agreeing with Russia a new joint council which would provide a forum for working out common positions on a range of security issues. The Post reports that in anticipation of such an agreement the NATO leaders, have agreed to meet Mr Putin in Rome on May 28th.
The new body would replace the five-year-old Permanent Joint Council, where dialogue has often consisted largely of a mutual exchange of positions without any attempt to bring them together.
Meanwhile, in Washington, an inquiry has been launched by a furious Secretary of Defence, Mr Don Rumsfeld, into who circulated a memo in Congress on behalf of the army which sought to undermine his attempts to scrap the expensive Crusader heavy artillery programme. Mr Rumsfeld would like to spend the money on other forms of new technology but Crusader has powerful backers in Congress.
The inquiry may well put real pressure on the Secretary for the Army, Mr Thomas White, who has spoken publicly in defence of Crusader.