Barack Obama is getting ready for his first trip to Moscow that will last from Monday 6th of July to Wednesday 9th. This is a re-start of a new area in the relations between Russia and the USA. Depending on those meetings is the future of the bilateral nuclear programme of disarmament and the anti missile shield affair (NMD) that the USA plans to build in Central Europe.

In this Summit a new treaty will be prepared in order to reduce the nuclear strategic arsenal of both countries, to replace the START-1 treaty that will expire on December 5th 2009.

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Pressenza, Moscú, 2009-07-05

The anti missile shield appears to be an important obstacle for Russia-USA cooperation in general.

However, Barack Obama represents now a big change in the relations between Moscow and Washington, as the US president offers a relationship of mutual befenefits, leaving the Cold War mentality that characterized during the Bush Administration.

“Obama understands that Russia is not a threat to the US and that is why he is trying to economize on the resources that the former Administration deployed for the building of an anti-Russian shield”, tells Fiodor Lukianov, director of the magazine Russia in Global Politics, to the news agency RIA Novosti.

“The control upon the so-called potential recoverable is another important fact. For Russia it is not convenient that the nuclear armament which is to be reduced in the short run could be used again and reincorporated to active service. Russia cannot accept either the possibility to militarize space,” said Vladimir Orlov, president of the Fund of investigations on nuclear disarmament Pir-Centre.

Both parts hope to leave the negotiation table holding a binding agreement whose force and effect must be applied. START-1 is a fairly broad treaty which specifies the steps that are to be taken leaving no place for ambiguity. If they manage to sign a similar treaty, precise and binding, Russia as well as the USA would be obliged to bring about specific features. Obama wishes that agreement to be well-founded.

PRESSENZA