http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/world/europe/04russia.html?_r=1
Russia Opens Route for U.S. to Fly Arms to Afghanistan
MOSCOW — The Russian government has agreed to let American troops and weapons bound for Afghanistan fly over Russian territory, providing an important new corridor for the United States military as it escalates efforts to win the eight-year-old war, officials on both sides said Friday.
The agreement, to be formally announced when President Obama visits here Monday and Tuesday, represents one of the most concrete achievements in his attempt to press the reset button after years of tension between the United States and Russia.
But before the anticipated summit meeting, the two governments failed to make a trade deal or resolve differences over missile defense and are struggling to craft a preliminary agreement to cut nuclear arms that they can unveil.
The tough haggling and the mixture of success with stalemate leading up to Mr. Obama’s visit illustrate just how sticky the reset button can be.
The promise of a new era of cooperation was always predicated on the tenuous notion that a change of tone and shift in emphasis in the United States might be enough to bridge deep divisions. But even with both sides eager for warmer ties, the issues that have torn Washington and Moscow apart did not go away with the change in tenancy at the White House.
Mr. Obama is less enthusiastic than former President George W. Bush about inviting the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO or building an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe, but he has not abandoned either goal, much to the consternation of the Kremlin. And despite American pressure, Russia has not yielded in its continuing confrontation with Georgia nearly a year after the two countries waged a brief war.
Mr. Obama’s first visit here as president will be a test of his foreign policy. American officials said the larger message of Mr. Obama’s visit is to show that rebuilding the relationship with Russia is a priority. If the Russians do not take him up on his open hand, the American officials said, he will simply move on to other priorities.
But Mr. Obama faces a reservoir of resentment among Russians who believe America has never met them halfway. “There’s a lot of suspicion that this has been talk, talk, talk — let’s see some real action,” said Vladimir Pozner, a talk show host on state television and longtime observer of Russian-American relations. “At this point, there is a little bit of hope and a lot of distrust.”
Richard R. Burt, a former American diplomat who is part of a Russian-American group called Global Zero, which is pushing the two sides to pursue nuclear disarmament, said Mr. Obama must overcome that suspicion. “I just get the sense that the Russians are kind of grumpy, so there’s still some sharpness on the Russian side, despite pushing the reset button,” Mr. Burt said.
At the same time, Mr. Obama faces pressure at home not to go soft on Russia. Mr. Obama sounded a tough note this week when he said Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin still “has one foot in the old ways.” Mr. Obama also is sending Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to visit Georgia and Ukraine after the summit meeting to demonstrate that he will not abandon them.
“On NATO expansion and missile defense, I would just say this, that we’re definitely not going to use the word ‘reassure’ in the way that we talk about these things,” said Michael McFaul, the president’s top Russia adviser. “We’re not going to reassure or give or trade anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion or missile defense.”
Still, the new transit route over Russia represents an important step in diplomatic relations. Until now, Russia has restricted use of its territory for the Afghan war, permitting shipments of non-lethal supplies by train. Under the new agreement, American officials said, military planes carrying lethal equipment as well as troops will be allowed to make thousands of flights a year through Russian airspace.
“Afghanistan is one of the areas where we must cooperate,” Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, said in an interview. Russia understands, he said, that the United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan are effectively defending Russia’s southern flank.
The agreement on Afghanistan was a high priority for Mr. Obama, who has ordered an extra 21,000 American troops to join the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces there. Supply routes through Pakistan have become complicated by that country’s increasing volatility, while Uzbekistan evicted American troops from a base a few years ago and Kyrgyzstan threatened recently to do the same. American negotiators recently persuaded Kyrgyzstan to change its mind by increasing payments for the base there.
But with Mr. Obama preparing to depart on Sunday, negotiators for the two sides were still trying to work out a preliminary agreement on nuclear arms cuts that he could announce along with President Dmitri A. Medvedev. The so-called framework agreement would lay out the parameters of a treaty to be drafted by the end of the year to replace the expiring cold war Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
The two sides hope to lay out a range of possible limits for warheads and delivery vehicles as well as address issues like the verification of conventional arms. They are talking about a range for warheads of around 1,500 to 1,800, down from the 2,200 limit in a treaty signed by Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin in 2002, and a range for delivery vehicles from perhaps 300 to 1,500.
But they have not yet agreed on the numbers and Russia wants to tie the negotiations to the dispute over missile defense. While Washington maintains the anti-missile system is intended to defend against a future threat from Iran, Moscow sees it as aimed at itself and wants the agreement that Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev sign to link limits on offensive and defensive weapons.
However that turns out, the two sides want to build on the summit to make further progress. The Obama team proposed a new version of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission of the 1990s, named for Vice President Al Gore and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.
The Russians rejected the idea of pairing Mr. Putin with Mr. Biden. “Putin’s not a vice president,” an American official quoted the Russians saying.
So instead, officials on both sides said, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev ostensibly will head the commission, but leave it to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov to run. Subgroups will be set up on various issues like climate change and energy.
“This is like a mid-semester report card,” said Sarah E. Mendelson, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s not looking like an A but it’s not a D either.”
Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow