SMRs and AMRs

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Medvedev and Obama Show Impatience on Iran

By HELENE COOPER
NYT

SINGAPORE — President Obama and President Dimitri Medvedev of Russia expressed dissatisfaction Sunday with Iran’s response to a nuclear offer made by world powers, raising the prospect that sanctions may be the next step in the West’s ongoing efforts to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

The two men, meeting during an Asia-Pacific summit conference in Singapore, also made progress in efforts to negotiate a replacement for a key arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that is set to expire in December, U.S. administration officials said.

While White House officials acknowledged on Sunday that a new pact to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, will be ratified soon, they said they expect to reach a “bridge” agreement that will preserve the status quo until a new treaty is approved.

Earlier, on Sunday morning, Mr. Obama and other world leaders decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement at a global conference scheduled for next month, deciding instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific, “politically binding” agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future.

(More here.)

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