Main focus of Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Disarmament talks in Moscow

US President Barack Obama and his Russian colleague Dmitry Medvedev have agreed in Moscow to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons arsenals. The two heads of state also reached an agreement over cooperation in the US's planned missile defence system in Eastern Europe.

ABC - Spain

The conservative daily ABC writes that the understanding reached between Russia and the US over further cooperation on disarmament is "good news". However it's hardly appropriate to speak of a new beginning to relations between the two, the paper writes: "As in many aspects of international policy the Obama government has limited itself to distancing itself from the legacy of its predecessor - offering Moscow the possibility of a new beginning. But US President [Obama] is wrong once again, because the discord between the two countries is about more than just what the US did well or poorly in the past. Let's not forget that the decisions taken in the Kremlin play into this as well. Some of them did not contribute in the least to furthering mutual trust." (07/07/2009)

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Dagens Nyheter - Sweden

The daily Dagens Nyheter praises US President Barack Obama's efforts to reach a new arms agreement with Russia but also urges caution: "This [the disarmament agreement] will make the goal of preventing more countries from acquiring nuclear weapons easier to achieve. It's no coincidence that Obama is focusing on this. Of all the issues that divide Russia and the US disarmament is the least contentious. Talks about nuclear weapons give Russia the feeling of being a superpower again and then it doesn't take much to get talking about a new start. As long as there is 'mutual respect' Obama's policy is welcome. But if Russia interprets the new tone as a green light for threatening neighbouring countries or for weakening its democratic institutions then frankness would be preferable." (07/07/2009)

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Rzeczpospolita - Poland

The conservative daily Rzeczpospolita voices relief that the Russian-US summit did not bury the US's project for a missile defence system: "Reducing nuclear arsenals and cooperating militarily on Afghanistan are not bad at all - on the contrary. But that doesn't mean the meeting in Moscow between the world's strongmen Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev is a turning point that will change the world. ... We still don't know if the project for the missile defence system in our country will remain just that: a project. But we do know that it has still not been entirely buried, despite pressure from Russia. So Obama hasn't given Medvedev any gifts. And if he had wanted to, this first meeting would have been the time." (07/07/2009)

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The Guardian - United Kingdom

"The most concrete result of yesterday's summit was Russia's agreement to give the US military transit across Russia to Afghanistan", writes The Guardian. "It was a dramatic sequel to Putin's historic decision to support Washington after 9/11. Even as the US gets bogged down in Afghanistan, there is no schadenfreude in Moscow after its own troubles two decades ago. Russia sees Afghanistan as a far greater threat than Iran. Unlike Sunni al-Qaida, the Shia Islamists of Tehran and Qom have never tried to undermine central Asia or Russia's Muslim republics, or intervened in Chechnya. Moscow is more worried about the potential nuclear threat from Pakistan - a declared nuclear power that could fall into aggressive fundamentalist hands - than the putative one from Iran." (07/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Russia, » U.S., » Iran, » Afghanistan, » Pakistan
All available articles from » Jonathan Steele

La Repubblica - Italy

Behind the agreement between the US and Russia lies Russia's will to regain its status as an equal partner, writes the left-liberal daily La Repubblica: "[The agreement] is the US's sole possibility to defuse the ill-will of the regime that took office in 2000. Nationalist through and through, it still suffers from the Cold War defeat and from being treated as a secondary, even subordinate negotiating partner during the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency. For now Barack Obama has certainly made concessions to the regime, but he also seems ... to back the less ideological and more realistic [political] wing. Even opponents of the regime in Moscow doubt the correctness of this separation tactic. They fear that American intervention could further consolidate the twin leadership of Putin and Medvedev." (07/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Russia, » U.S.
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