PROMISES OF « FRESH START » FOR US - RUSSIA RELATIONS

By HELENE COOPER

Published: April 1, 2009

LONDON — President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, in their first meeting, vowed a “fresh start” in relations and announced their intention to cooperate on a variety of issues, beginning with negotiations on a new arms control treaty.

In seeking to recast a relationship that has been teetering on the brink of a new cold war, the two leaders also promised to work together on the war in Afghanistan and efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Appearing after a 70-minute session here, the two struck a warm tone.

“What we’re seeing today is the beginning of new progress in the U.S.-Russian relations,” Mr. Obama said. “And I think that President Medvedev’s leadership is, and has been, critical in allowing that progress to take place.”

The relationship has suffered in recent years over a series of issues, from missile defense to NATO expansion to Russia’s invasion of the Georgian territory of South Ossetia.

Mr. Obama conceded that there remained “real differences” between the countries. But he said he had no intention of “papering over those differences,” which he said had developed because “the relationship between our two countries has been allowed to drift.”

Mr. Obama, who is making his debut on the world stage this week at the Group of 20 economic summit meeting, spent Wednesday engaged in a series of firsts: besides his first meeting with Mr. Medvedev, he also met with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and with President Hu Jintao of China.

He defended the United States from French and German criticism that Washington was trying to bully others into pumping more money into economic stimulus programs. And he tried to sound optimistic that the Group of 20 meeting on Thursday, which is already featuring a schism between the United States and Europe over deregulation and spending, would accomplish something more than posturing.

“I am absolutely confident that this meeting will reflect enormous consensus about the need to work in concert to deal with those problems,” he said.

But by far the most wrenching conflict that he tackled on Wednesday involved Russia. Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev met for about 10 minutes with only their interpreters present, and spent 60 minutes in discussions with a larger delegation that included Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the national security adviser, James L. Jones.

First meetings between American and Russian leaders are fraught with historical significance. Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev famously pummeled President John F. Kennedy in 1961 during a two-day grilling in Vienna at a meeting Mr. Kennedy characterized as the “roughest thing in my life”; shortly after that meeting, Mr. Khrushchev began building the Berlin Wall.

President George W. Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin established a personal rapport in Slovenia in 2001 that was badly eroded later by a string of contentious issues, like America’s plans to locate a missile defense system in Eastern Europe against Russian wishes.

Mr. Obama walked into the meeting with Mr. Medvedev on Wednesday, his aides said, determined not to repeat past mistakes. After initial pleasantries — the two men discussed their shared interest in law — Mr. Obama, the aides recounted, said, “All right, let’s get down to business,” and began discussions that included Afghanistan, Iran, missile defense and human rights.

Mr. Obama brought up Lev A. Ponomaryov, a Russian human rights leader and frequent Kremlin critic, who was beaten late Tuesday outside his Moscow home. The president did not, however, mention the jailed former tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who is being tried in Russia on charges of tax evasion and other offenses that his supporters claim are trumped up.

A joint statement released after the meeting promised a “fresh start in relations between our two countries,” and White House officials said Mr. Obama would visit Moscow in July.

“We, the leaders of Russia and the United States, are ready to move beyond cold war mentalities,” the two men said in the statement. “In just a few months we have worked hard to establish a new tone in our relations. Now it is time to get down to business and translate our warm words into actual achievements of benefit to Russia, the United States and all those around the world interested in peace and prosperity.”

But clear problems between the nations remained visible, even when viewed through the prism of the joint statement, which sought to emphasize common ground. On European missile defense, for instance, the statement acknowledged “that differences remain” but said that Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev looked into possibilities for cooperation, “taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats.”

That appeared to be a noncommittal way of saying that Russia still had not lifted its intense objections to American plans to locate a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, and that the Obama administration was not willing to give up those plans unless it received something from Russia in return, foreign policy experts said.

The United States could be looking for more cooperation on international efforts to halt what the West believes are Iran’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon despite Tehran’s obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “While we recognize that under the N.P.T. Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program, Iran needs to restore confidence in its exclusively peaceful nature,” the statement said, reflecting the Russian argument that Iran’s nuclear ambitions may have been overstated.

Still, in a concession to the United States, the statement called on Iran to stop its enrichment of uranium and to allow more international weapons inspections of its nuclear facilities.