US shares interests with Russia: Obama

America for strong, peaceful Russia

In a speech intended to highlight his two-day visit, Obama reached out to national sensibilities here by assuring that “America wants a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia” and declaring that “it is not for me to define Russia’s national interests.”
Yet he made the case that Russia should join America in curbing emerging nuclear powers like Iran and in promoting greater liberties at home.

“By no means is America perfect,” the president said in a speech at the New Economic School, a graduate school in Moscow formed after the fall of the Soviet Union to introduce modern market economics to Russia.

“But it is our commitment to certain universal values which allows us to correct our imperfections, to improve constantly and to grow stronger over time.”

He added, “If our democracy did not advance those rights, then I — as a person of African ancestry — wouldn’t be able to address you as an American citizen, much less a president.”

Obama’s speech came one day after he signed an agreement in principle with President Dmitri A Medvedev to cut Russian and American strategic nuclear arsenals by at least one-quarter.

Breakfast with Putin

As he began his second day in Moscow, Obama had breakfast with Prime Minister Vladimir V Putin, viewed as Russia’s paramount leader, in a meeting that ran long over its scheduled time. Putin noted that there had been periods of “grayish mood between our two countries,” an allusion to the tension of recent years that culminated with last year’s war between Russia and its small neighbour, Georgia.

“With you,” Putin told Obama, “we link all our hopes for the furtherance of relations between our two countries.”

‘Prosperity in India good for US’

As the world grappled to cope up with the “worst global recession in a generation,” President Barack Obama said prosperity in countries like India and China is good for the US and West as it opens new markets for them and pushes their businesses to innovate, PTI reports from Moscow.

“We meet in the midst of the worst global recession in a generation. I believe that the market is the greatest force for creating and distributing wealth that the world has known,” Obama said addressing the ‘New Economic School’ here.