Press hope over Russia-US summit

Barack Obama has urged Russia to turn from the past

The summit between US President Barack Obama and Russian leaders in Moscow has been broadly welcomed by the press in the two countries.

However, commentators differ on the success of efforts to "reset" relations, and media in Russia's powerful neighbour China are altogether more sceptical of the outcome.

It seems that the "resetting" of Russian-US relations that the US president has talked so much about has taken place... Military experts, however, are sceptical about the main result of the Russian-US summit... The Russian-US summit has brought important benefits not in the military sphere, but in the political one.

Even after the first day of Barack Obama's Moscow visit, it can be stated with certainty that the US president and Dmitry Medvedev have confidently pressed the virtual "reset" button in Russian-US relations.

Following the talks, a package of documents was signed, the most important of which is the agreement on the transit of US military supplies, equipment and troops to Afghanistan across Russian territory. As to the issues of the reduction of strategic offensive arsenals and missile defence, in effect neither party changed its position, but this was still presented as a success: the joint documents on Start and missile defence were signed, as promised.

Medvedev and Obama have agreed on the parameters for reducing the number of strategic weapons and have issued a number of statements on military issues and nuclear cooperation. But they were unable to reach a compromise on contentious issues... According to a source close to the defence ministry, 500 delivery systems is what Russia will have in seven years anyway, given the current rate of armament, and for the USA 1,000 [delivery systems] is the level that is easy to maintain.

Of course there is no such thing as a magic button in Russian-US relations which, if you press it, will turn everything into an idyll. But no doubt there are new central characters who are interested in resetting relations.

It is complete stupidity to consider Obama to be a copy of Bush. Our chances of improving relations with the USA are quite realistic... One compromise might lead to another, and the famous "resetting" of relations might cease being pure rhetoric and become part of real politics.

Following decades of antagonism during the Cold War and its aftermath, Obama and Medvedev have staked substantial political capital on their ability to repair relations between Washington and Moscow and move beyond past battles... By day's end, the sun had broken through, and in their more than three hours together, the two leaders had given the world three signing ceremonies, three joint statements and the creation of a 13-part bilateral commission that will "serve as a new foundation" for further cooperation... The news of progress was laid on so thick that it was easy to forget just how much the old divisions continue to define the relationship between the two countries.

While the two presidents appeared to have overcome the acrimony that all but paralysed relations late last year, they focused on issues where reaching agreement was relatively easy. Continuing the progress will require tackling areas where differences are much deeper.

PepsiCo will invest $1bn in Russia over the next three years... other Russian and American companies also capitalised on the amiability of the summit meeting of President Obama and President Dmitri A Medvedev... Boeing agreed to buy Russian titanium parts for its wide-body Dreamliner jet, and Deere & Company, the farm-equipment maker, announced plans to invest in its operations in Russia.

It's not the weapons, it's the regimes that matter. Personally, I don't feel much safer knowing that Russia will have a few hundred fewer strategic warheads, especially when they still have thousands of highly portable tactical nuclear weapons that aren't covered by this treaty at all. Russia will continue to be a destabilising and dangerous influence as long as it has an unaccountable government with few, if any, internal checks and balances. That is the real source of American-Russian tension, and by further legitimating the existing Russian regime we are, if anything, slightly exacerbating that problem.

Although Obama has done his utmost to declare that he is different from Bush, he is no different to Bush in terms of leading the US to maintain its global superpower status. Bush wanted to hold Russia in check, and Obama also wants to do the same, and the approach he has adopted is just more flexible and "smart"... Obama's Moscow visit will promote US-Russian relations to some extent, but not too much.

Although the US and Russia wish to "reset" bilateral relations, this will be very difficult indeed to operate. In Central Asia in particular, colour revolutions have yet to fade completely. Recently, the competition for the Manas base was a microcosm of the covert battle between the two sides.

BBC Monitoringselects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.

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