U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev are expected to ink a landmark arms control deal on Thursday in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. Both the timing of the signing and the choice of Prague imply that the two world powers try to seize the opportunity to exert their political and diplomatic influence, analysts said.
The signing comes just days ahead of two much-anticipated international conferences on nuclear issues, the Nuclear Security Summit on April 12-13 in Washington and the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May in New York. This may not be a coincidence. The motives for the two nuclear powers to sign the new pact before the two conferences, is trying to maintain and reinforce their dominance in the fields of international nuclear reduction and nuclear security, analysts said.
Furthermore, as the Iranian nuclear issue is expected to be a focus at the conferences, U.S. policymakers hope the signing will reinforce their push for a new round of sanctions on Iran at the meetings. The choice of Prague as the site for signing the new pact, called the "New START" treaty since it is to replace the now-expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), bears strong political symbolism, too.
Author: Zhang Wei
