Medvedev and Obama speed up START talks
Published: 24 February, 2010, 21:47
Edited: 16 March, 2010, 12:38
US President Barack Obama (R) talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (AFP Photo / Jewel Samad)
(15.7Mb) embed videoTAGS: Arms, Russia, Politics, USA
Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama have agreed to speed up talks on the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START.
The decision was reached during a phone call between the two leaders on Wednesday.
The new deal is purported to call for dramatic cuts in the atomic arsenals of both sides, and replace the previous treaty that expired in December last year.
Intense negotiations between Moscow and Washington have dragged on for months, with both sides repeatedly promising to reach agreement soon.
However, Russia has made it clear that any deal must also take into account America's missile defence plans – an issue that's hampered progress between the two countries.
Mikhail Troitsky, political analyst from the Moscow office of the MacArthur Foundation, said there are two reasons behind Russia’s insistence to include the missile defence issue in the START treaty.
“First, Russia wants to preserve the credibility of its nuclear deterrent and it would prefer to avoid a situation in which the US might believe that it is at least partially protected from Russia's potential retaliatory strike. Secondly, Russia is concerned with potential offensive uses of the missile defence infrastructure, which the US seeks to introduce in Eastern Europe,” Troitsky says.
24.02.2010, 17:13
17 comments
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Too much time has already been spent on those talks; the reset-button was just an other US trick. America's imperialism and desires to dominate the World has not changed; it even seem under N-PiPO' snicky presidency to be intensified...Russian leaders should stop wasting their time on a lost cause and make their country an example to be followed. With the BRIC nations and many other decent states, they could initiate a new World-Order. Explaining the true facts to the 95% of humans who are not US citizen should not be too difficult. Then soon after, the American population who is the first victim of her insane system will wake-up and operate the necessary clean-up. We have this choice or going back to a new arms' race and the waste of billions $ as we have known for over 60 years...Sorry Future Generations ! Sincerely. Jean-Claude Meslin
Of course Obama wants to speed up START. He wants to quickly apply the handcuffs to Russia, so that he can move in closer with more and more missles. An agreement that doesn't link Offensive and defensive missiles, is not a START for Russia, it is an END game for the west.












Of coarse America has imperial ambitions,, like,,,,, That those of post WWII,,, where by American armed forces freed millions who would now be living in something other than a a free society! Does the simplest of historical facts escape you morons? Please do more than rant! Study even just the simplest of facts! America has never militarily taken and held another country! Instead America not only stands and is willing to give the blood of her sons and daughters for her own freedom, but has given more lives to the cause of freedom for more people all over the world! Cowards cow toe to the totalitarian regimes of the world, America as a historical fact sheds her blood for the people who now have purple thumbs (the color) of freedom in Iraq, Afghanistan, where tyrants murder women at the local soccer stadium for reading a book!!!! Please don't insult me with your ignorant rants! Star wars is the only proven successful missile defense system in the world, it works and has already defended freedom on a its elementary platform (the patriot missile) in the 92 gulf war. Oh that was in defense of Israel another one of those pesky democratic republics where the defense and responsibility that goes along with freedom are taken seriously. As for Barrack (our community organizer / president) coward!!!!!!!! If it was your child who's life and freedom were on the line, and the shit hit the fan, you know where he will be,,,,,, hiding behind his wife's skirt,,,, defending no one,,, including the freedom of the ones who are to ignorant to appreciate freedom or even have a concept of what freedom is, let alone what it means! Like my father said (WWII Vet) "when freedom is over here sonny, it over for the rest of the world, forever"