Clinton in Moscow for Talks on Middle East, Nukes

(March 18) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Moscow today for talks on a long-delayed arms control deal and on how to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

Clinton's trip comes a year after she offered Russia's foreign minister a mock "reset" button to restart a fresh relationship battered during the George W. Bush years, when Washington planned anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe and Moscow sent tanks rumbling into U.S. ally Georgia in 2008. Since then, the old Cold War foes have made significant strides in cooperation on issues important to Washington like Iran and Afghanistan, and are coming close to agreement on a major arms control pact.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, first signed in 1991, expired in December while officials were still haggling over the fine print on an agreement to replace it. The new pact would make deep cuts to the nuclear arsenals of both the U.S. and Russia, reducing deployed strategic warheads and delivery systems by at least 25 percent. Moreover, it would be a symbol of the new relationship Washington is trying to forge with Moscow.

Clinton plans to meet Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who last week expressed confidence an arms control deal could be reached by the end of the month. That would allow U.S. President Barack Obama to present the pact at an international summit on nuclear non-proliferation in Washington next month.

"Certainly this is a moment when we've made a lot of progress and we certainly hope to make more, and the secretary's involvement is extremely important," the undersecretary of state for political affairs, William Burns, told reporters from several agencies traveling on Clinton's plane. "We want to move ahead to finish the agreement."

Meanwhile, Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, is joining Clinton in Moscow for talks on another agenda item: the recent row over Israel's plans to build 1,600 more apartments for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem, an area of the holy city where Palestinians want the capital of a future state. Word of the Israeli government's construction plans came out unexpectedly last Tuesday while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel, despite U.S. policy that calls for a halt to all Jewish settlement expansion.

Clinton called the announcement an insult and a "deeply negative signal" for the peace process, and questioned Israel's commitment to its relationship with the United States. She's called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reverse the east Jerusalem housing plans and make a gesture of renewed commitment to peace talks with the Palestinians. The State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, told reporters Wednesday that Clinton is waiting for a phone call from Netanyahu.

Over the next two days, Clinton and Mitchell plan to hold talks with the three other members of the so-called Quartet of Mideast peacemakers -- officials from the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. The Quartet meeting was meant to lend support to a start this week of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but those talks broke down before they began, because of Israel's building announcement.

In her talks with Russian officials, Clinton is also expected to bring up the idea of more sanctions on Iran because of its disputed nuclear program. Moscow had initially opposed more punitive measures against Tehran, but has recently warmed to the idea after Iran rebuffed a U.N. proposal to ship much of its lightly enriched uranium to Russia and France for further processing.

If Clinton can win Russia's backing for such sanctions, it could ease her efforts to do the same with China, which so far still backs more talks with Iran, rather than sanctions. China is the last holdout on the U.N. Security Council with power to veto any resolution imposing sanctions on Iran.

Burns told traveling reporters this morning that he's confident a resolution would be adopted against Iran, but offered no timetable. "There's a sense of urgency that we feel, and we'd like to move this ahead as quickly as we can," he said.

So far the schedule for Clinton's trip in Russia doesn't include a meeting with the man thought to be that country's most powerful politician -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He was traveling abroad the last time Clinton visited Russia as well, in October.