Cool Moscow Will Wait For Obama (St. Petersburg Times, RUSSIA)

Moscow signaled over the weekend that relations with Washington will come to a virtual standstill until President-elect Barack Obama assumes office in January, rejecting new U.S. proposals on missile defense and nuclear arms reduction.

President Dmitry Medvedev also spoke by telephone with Obama, and the two agreed to meet soon, possibly at a summit on the global financial crisis in Washington this week, the Kremlin said.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that Moscow was not satisfied with new U.S. proposals on missile defense and nuclear arms reduction and that positions expressed earlier by Obama provided hope for a “more constructive” approach.

“We have paid attention to the positions that Barack Obama has published on his site. They instill hope that we can examine these questions in a more constructive way,” Lavrov said after an 80-minute meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the sidelines of a Middle East peace conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Lavrov said there would be further consultations on defense issues with the United States this year but suggested that any final agreements would likely come only after the Obama administration takes office on Jan. 20.

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