Obama Seeks New Start in Sagging US-Russia Ties

Those deals could be announced at an Obama-Medvedev news conference Monday afternoon after the leaders' scheduled four-hour meeting.

An unidentified woman pushes a symbolic Reset Button for US - Russian relations as she stands...

An unidentified woman pushes a symbolic Reset Button for US - Russian relations as she stands between life-size cardboard cutouts of Russian Presidents Dmitry Medvedev, left, and U.S. President Barak Obama, right, in Moscow on Friday, July 3, 2009. (AP Photo/ Mikhail Metzel)

(AP)

There's been an apparent hardening on both sides over a proposed U.S. missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. Those differences could stall or even preclude an agreement of strategic nuclear warheads. That could kill the hoped-for extension of those talks next year to include cuts in delivery vehicles: long-range missiles, submarines and bombers.

On Friday, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the current prime minister and former president, said the Kremlin would not negotiate a replacement to START I unless Obama clarified plans for the defense system to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The U.S. contends it's designed to protect U.S. allies in Europe from a potential nuclear attack by Iran. The Russians see it as a way of weakening their offensive nuclear strike potential that is are arrayed against the U.S. arsenal. Obama has been cool to the program, which former President George W. Bush pushed hard.

"The whole issue of missile defense from my perspective is focused on defense of Europe," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Obviously, the Russians see it differently. So I think we're going to have to work our way through that."

The White House said Sunday that if an agreement comes too late for Senate ratification by Dec. 5, it would look for ways to enforce some aspects on an executive level while waiting for ratification.

Obama's schedule include an hourlong meeting with Putin on Tuesday. Protocol does not demand he visit the prime minister.

"Prime Minister Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia, and I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction," Obama said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.