President Obama on White House phone negotiating withRussian President Dmitry Medvedev June 30, 2009
WHO KNEW that during the past year, in the midst of trying to save the U.S. economy, working hard for the historic passing of health care reform, student loan reform and the like...The President was secretly and simultaneously negotiating with Russia toward his goal of a nuclear-arms-free world !
Talk about MULTI-TASKING !
PRAGUE — Making a down payment on his goal of a nuclear-arms-free world, President Barack Obama signed a new treaty with his Russian counterpart Thursday to reduce nuclear arsenals on both sides by about one-third.
In a gilded hall here at a castle in Prague’s presidential complex, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev put their signatures on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Talks treaty that calls on each country to reduce its number of warheads and long-range missiles — still maintaining plenty to ensure mutual destruction bu t a step toward reducing the nuclear threat worldwide.
For Obama, the treaty signing marks an important foreign policy accomplishment — building on the goal he laid out one year ago in this city, in a speech calling for an end to nuclear weapons worldwide. In the speech, Obama acknowledged it was a long-range goal that would outlive him and his presidency but that set him on a course of finding way to reduce the United States’ own arsenal.
“I believed then — as I do now — that the pursuit of that goal will move us further beyond the Cold War, strengthen the global nonproliferation regim e and make the United States, and the world, safer and more secure. One of the steps that I called for last year was the realization of this treaty, so I am glad to be back in Prague today,” Obama said after signing the treaty.
Obama also predicted the U.S. Senate would ratify the treaty, despite some Republicans' objections that it goes too far in reducing American military might.
Obama said the chamber has a "strong history of bipartisanship" on approving arms pacts and said he has spoken with the "chairmen of the relevant committees" in the Senate.
"We are beginning to once again move forward, leaving the Cold War behind, to address new challenges in new ways," he said. "I feel confident that we are going to be able to get [the treaty] ratified."
Obama said he hoped the effects of the new START treaty would go far beyond the deeply technical language about how many nuclear bombs each country could possess — and to warmer relations between the last remaining superpower and the only other nation with a massive nuclear stockpile.
And in his comments, he recalled that Medvedev had said, “Our relationship had started to drift, making it difficult to cooperate on issues of common interest to our people. And when the United States and Russia are not able to work together on big issues, it is not good for either of our nations or for the world. (Read rest of article)
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