New arms control deal to be signed in city of symbols - Feature

Katerina Zachovalova

Prague - US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev are to sign a new nuclear arms reduction treaty in a Prague visit laden with ambiguous symbolism.

For Obama, the choice of Prague marks the first anniversary of his speech outlining an ambitious vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

But selecting the Czech capital for the signing ceremony allows him to kill a number of seemingly contrarian symbolic birds with one stone.

Obama also aims to eliminate fears in central and eastern Europe, a former Soviet backyard, from the so-called reset of relations with Russia, diplomatic sources said.

"It is not only about the full-circle symbolism and about presenting the first tangible evidence of disarmament efforts," Czech Ambassador to the United States, Petr Kolar, told the German Press Agency dpa.

"It is also about placing emphasis on our alliance and on this region," he said.

Aside from signing the fresh START agreement with Medvedev - a symbol of a new, less strained era in US-Russian relations - sources said that Obama is also to meet leaders of former Soviet satellites, who have resented his friendlier approach to Russia.

Pro-Atlanticist intellectuals and politicians in the region, including former Czech and Polish presidents Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, expressed those anxieties in a July open letter to the US president, in which they asked Obama not to sacrifice their countries in order to mend ties with Moscow.

The region is sensitive to nuances in symbolism, after belonging to the Soviet sphere of influence for nearly half a century.

At the end of World War II in May 1945, Prague was liberated by Soviet troops, as the victorious powers from the West had agreed with their Eastern counterparts to stop their advance short of the capital.

Moscow re-affirmed its dominance in 1968, leading a Warsaw Pact invasion of what was then Czechoslovakia to crush the country's drive to reform ailing economy and liberalize rigorous political life.

Czechs lived in the Kremlin's empire until communism collapsed in Europe in 1989.

The Czech Republic as well as other countries in the region have since joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the West's military alliance. But fears of Russia have persisted.

Unlike the majority of the public, right-wing Czech politicians thus readily embraced US plans to base a long-range missile-defense system on Czech and Polish soil for the stated reason of countering Iran's growing missile capability.

Moscow steadfastly opposed the Bush-era plans and the issue dragged US-Russian relations to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

Obama announced in September that he was scrapping the project to the dismay of its backers in the Czech Republic and Poland. Instead, he plans to introduce medium-range missile defenses in Eastern Europe.

For the ceremony's Czech hosts it was important that the new arms control deal, likely to be signed in Prague Castle, the seat of Czech presidents, does not represent a Russian victory and a US concession on missile defense, sources said.

The revamped shield plans served as the last point of contention before Obama and Medvedev reached agreement in a phone call on March 26, the New York Times reported.

The outcome is acceptable to Prague.

The two leaders agreed to spell out their missile shield positions in separate non-binding statements, the report said, while the treaty's preamble only vaguely states that offensive and defense elements are interrelated, Czech diplomats said.

Even the fiercest critics of Obama's move to drop the missile defense radar, the facility planned for the Czech Republic, were not angry over the upcoming US-Russia summit.

Jan Vidim, a right-wing lawmaker who called Obama's decision a betrayal, said that the meeting will promote the Czech capital. But he did have some reservations.

"Such meetings take place in neutral countries," he told dpa. "I would not like the Czech Republic to be considered a neutral country, because it is not."

Czech diplomats initially shared this view, but embraced the US request to host the event after receiving assurances to the contrary.

"We received assurances that we are not viewed as a bridge between the West and the East," Ambassador Kolar said. "We were selected as a firmly-anchored member of the alliance."

The signing ceremony may well be Prague's last chance for a while to bask in the international spotlight.

Previous attention focused on the Bush-era missile defense talks, the Czech presidency of the European Union and President Vaclav Klaus' aversion to the EU's reform treaty.

This time, said pro-radar activist Martin Kotas, Prague is to play only a supporting role. "I think it is not very important for us," he said. "The city is a mere theater set."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/316828,new-arms-control-deal-to-be-signed-in-city-of.html.