Nation & World

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Do you have a news tip? newstips@heraldnet.com | 425.339.3400   Published: Monday, July 6, 2009 U.S.-Russia arms control deal likely Associated Press MOSCOW -- A White House official said he expects President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to announce a deal today that could lead to a new nuclear arms reduction treaty by year's end. Gary Samore -- Obama's top adviser on arms control -- would not give specifics about the agreement. But he said he expects the two presidents to announce that progress had been made and that negotiations would continue. Both sides are agreed in principle to cut warheads from more than 2,000 each to as low as 1,500 apiece. Obama arrives in Moscow today for two days of meetings. Obama and Medvedev will end a seven-year hiatus in U.S.-Russian summitry, with each declaring his determination to further cut nuclear arsenals and repair a badly damaged relationship. Both sides appear to want to use progress on arms control as a pathway to possible agreement on trickier issues, including Iran and Georgia, the tiny former Soviet republic. Those difficulties and others have soured a promising linkage in the first years after the Cold War and pushed ties between Moscow and Washington to depths unseen in more than two decades. "It's not, in our view, a zero-sum game, that if it's two points for Russia it's negative two for us, but there are ways that we can cooperate to advance our interests and, at the same time, do things with the Russians that are good for them as well," Obama's top assistant on Russia, Michael McFaul, said in a presummit briefing. The Russians have said they will agree to allow the United States to use their territory and air space to move munitions and arms to U.S. and NATO forces fighting Taliban Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. The Kremlin announced the deal days before the summit as a sweetener for Obama. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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