Obama, Medvedev vow to rebuild US-Russia ties

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.

In advance of Obama’s arrival, a White House official told reporters yesterday that the presidents expect to announce progress on negotiations that could lead to a treaty to replace the START I agreement, which expires Dec. 5.

More broadly, the United States wants to use the summit to overhaul US-Russian ties.

“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 briefing before the summit.

Medvedev said in a Web address that the two powers “need new, common, mutually beneficial projects in business, science, and culture.’’ He added, “I hope that this sincere desire to open a new chapter in Russian-American cooperation will be brought into fruition.’’

Two things appear certain:

Those deals could be announced at an Obama-Medvedev news conference this afternoon after the leaders’ scheduled four-hour meeting.

There has been an apparent hardening on both sides over a proposed US missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. Those differences could stall or even preclude an agreement on strategic nuclear warheads. That could kill the hoped-for extension of those talks next year to include cuts in delivery vehicles: long-range missiles, submarines, and bombers.

On Friday, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the prime minister and former president, said the Kremlin would not negotiate a replacement to START I unless Obama clarified plans for the defense system to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The United States contends it is designed to protect allies in Europe from a potential nuclear attack by Iran. The Russians see it as a way of weakening their offensive nuclear strike potential that is arrayed against the US arsenal. Obama has been cool to the program, which President George W. Bush championed.

“The whole issue of missile defense from my perspective is focused on defense of Europe,’’ said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Obviously, the Russians see it differently. So I think we’re going to have to work our way through that.’’