Reports: Obama offers end of US missile shield for Kremlin's help on Iran Stephen C. Webster

Published: Monday March 2, 2009





Print This Email This UPDATE (at bottom): NYT reports 'secret letter' posed deal, new way forward

Citing an unnamed White House official, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Monday that President Obama has offered to scrap plans for a US missile shield in Europe if the Russian leadership will help restrain Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions.



The offer was allegedly made in a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.



Moscow has reacted furiously to plans by the former administration of George W. Bush to place missile defence facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying the move was directly aimed against Russia.



"I am counting on the new US administration behaving on this question in a more creative and friendly way," Medvedev said Sunday in an interview with Spanish media, the transcript of which was published on the Kremlin website.



"We have already received positive signals from our American colleagues. I am expecting that these signals will turn into concrete proposals," he added.



Medvedev said he hoped that this issue would be discussed in his first meeting with Obama, expected to take place on the sidelines of the meeting of G20 countries in London on April 2.



"The first high-level Russia-U.S. meeting will take place later this week, when Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Geneva," reported Russian news agency Novosti.



"Moscow has not yet responded to the proposal by Obama, the paper said, adding that a decision was unlikely to be made during Lavrov and Clinton's meeting."

NYT: Obama's 'secret letter' sent last month

Late Monday, the New York Times apparently confirmed the Kommersant report.



"Its almost saying to them, put up or shut up," an unnamed administration official told the paper. "Its not that the Russians get to say, 'Well try and therefore you have to suspend.' It says the threat has to go away."



"Moscow has not responded, but a Russian official said Monday that Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov would have something to say on missile defense to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when they meet Saturday in Geneva," the Times reported.



With wire reports.





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