Obama and Medvedev would sign "framework agreements" on Monday
Lee, Minhwan
July 4, 2009
Obama Interview With Putin Critics Risks Russian Backlash
US president signals tough stance by speaking with prominent opposition
newspaper Novaya Gazeta ahead of state visit
Barack Obama is to give an interview to the Russian opposition newspaper
Novaya Gazeta before his trip to Moscow on Monday, in the clearest sign yet
that his administration will take an unexpectedly tough approach in its
dealings with the Kremlin. Obama will talk to the editor-in-chief, Dmitry
Muratov, and meet the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who co-owns
the paper.
Novaya Gazeta is famous for its critical reporting of the Russian
government. Its special correspondent Anna Politkovskaya is one of four
reporters from the paper to have been murdered. A critic of the prime
minister, Vladimir Putin, she was shot dead in Moscow in October 2006.
Formally, Obama is following in the footsteps of Russia's president, Dmitry
Medvedev, who granted Novaya an interview in April. This week the paper
published its own investigation into the origins of last summer's war
between Russia and Georgia. The Kremlin blamed Georgia's pro-US leader,
Mikheil Saakashvili. According to Novaya, however, the Kremlin planned its
invasion of Georgia long in advance, sending columns of tanks.
There has been a wide-ranging debate inside Obama's administration on how to
engage with Russia, after the disastrous Bush years. By last autumn
relations between Moscow and Washington had sunk to their lowest since the
1980s.
Foreign policy realists argue that in order to "reset" relations with
Moscow, and secure Russia's support for US priorities like Iran and
Afghanistan, Obama should soft-pedal his support for human rights. Idealists
want a vigorous, values-based engagement with the Kremlin.
Writing in the Moscow Times last week, Russian analyst Lilia Shevtsova
noted: "The outcome of Obama's visit will depend on the willingness of the
US to see the differences between the national interest of Russia and the
interests of Russia's ruling elite."
A Russian presidential spokesman, Sergei Prikhodko, said Obama and Medvedev
would sign "framework agreements" on Monday, covering nuclear arms
reduction, military co-operation and the transit of US supplies to
Afghanistan. They have pledged to agree a replacement to the Start-1 nuclear
treaty, which expires on December 5. But experts are sceptical. Prikhodko
confirmed that a deal could only take place if the US acknowledged Russia's
"concerns" over the US missile defence shield in central Europe. The Kremlin
wants Obama to dump it.
Human rights groups want Obama to raise the issue of murdered Russian
journalists. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 17
journalists have been killed since 2000.
On Thursday Obama described Putin as a cold war figure with "one foot in the
old ways of doing business and one foot on the new". Putin responded: "As
regards our standing one foot in the past and the other ahead, we cannot
stand, as they say, perhaps not in a very literary way, with out legs apart.
We stand firmly on our feet and always look to the future."
Putin said he was looking forward to Obama's visit "with very warm
feelings".