Obama seeks partnership with Russia

WORKING to turn Russia from antagonist to ally, US President Barack Obama has asked the Russian people to “forge a lasting partnership” with the US, but he acknowledged after talks with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that on divisive issues there won’t be “a meeting of the minds anytime soon”.

Obama was wrapping up a two-day stay in Russia, during which he and President Dmitry Medvedev said they were determined by year’s end to negotiate a new nuclear arms treaty that would slash both country’s arsenals by about one-third.

Obama told the graduating class of the New Economic School that the US and Russia were not “destined to be antagonists”.

“It is difficult to forge a lasting partnership between former adversaries,” Obama said. “But I believe on the fundamental issues that will shape this century, Americans and Russians share common interests that form a basis for co-operation.”

Before leaving for Russia, Obama had said that Putin had “one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.” After meeting with the Russian leader, he told Fox News Channel: “I found him to be tough, smart, shrewd, unsentimental, very pragmatic. And on areas where we disagree, like Georgia, I don’t anticipate a meeting of the minds anytime soon.”

Putin, the former Russian president, also spoke warmly of his country’s hopes for improved US ties with Obama in the White House.

“With you we link all our hopes for the furtherance of relations between our two countries,” the former KGB official said.

The White House had been hoping to reach a broader Russian audience with Obama’s speech, but the address was not widely available on television. It was carried live on the 24-hour news channel Vesti, but not on any of the main, more widely watched Russian outlets.

Obama used his speech to further define his view of the United States’s place in the world and to argue that the US shares compelling interests with Russia.

“Let me be clear: America wants a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia,” he said.

He said Russian and US interests largely overlap in halting the spread of nuclear weapons, confronting violent extremists, ensuring economic prosperity, advancing the rights of people and fostering co-operation without jeopardising sovereignty.

But he also sprinkled in challenges to Russia, particularly in the area of democracy. US officials are wary of Russia’s increasingly hard-line stand on dissent.

Obama said the US will not try to impose any kind of governing system on another country.

But he argued for democratic values “because they are moral, and also because they work”.

On Georgia and Ukraine – two nations that have sought Nato membership to the chagrin of neighbouring Russia – Obama tried a diplomatic touch.

He defended the steps nations must take to join the alliance, adding, “Nato seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation.”

The White House described the session positively, on the whole.

Today Obama heads to a G8 summit in Italy. While there he will meet Pope Benedict XVI, before moving on to Ghana where he plans to deliver what the White House describes as a major foreign policy speech.