WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has written to his Russian counterpart suggesting U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe might be unnecessary if Moscow helped in blocking Iran's progress toward building long-range missiles, senior administration officials said on Tuesday. Plans for deploying U.S. missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, ostensibly to guard against Iranian attacks on U.S. allies in Europe, are among a host of issues that soured U.S.-Russia relations during the former Bush administration. There have been indications Obama, who has vowed to shake up American foreign policy, might be willing to set aside the missile defense system.
"President Obama sent a letter to Medvedev that covered a broad range of issues, including missile defense and how it relates to the Iranian threat," one senior administration official said on condition of anonymity to discuss private communications of the president.
"The suggestion is that need for missile defense deployment could become unnecessary if, working together with Russia, the Iran missile threat is addressed," the official told The Associated Press.
Obama and Medvedev were expected to meet at the G-20 economic summit of advanced and developing nations in London next month, according to the officials.
The administration has previously hinted that the policy on the missile defense shield that former President George B. Bush fiercely advocated was open to reassessment.
The Obama letter was first reported in Tuesday's editions of The New York Times.
In Moscow, Medvedev spokeswoman Nataliya Timakova said that Obama's letter contained various proposals and assessments, but offered no quid pro quo.
"Obama's letter contained various proposals and assessments of the current situation," she said . "But the message did not contain any specific proposals or mutually binding initiatives."
She further disclosed that Obama's letter was in response to one from Medvedev and that the Kremlin appreciated the "positive" spirit of Obama's message.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov urged the United States to restore diplomatic relations with Iran, Russian news agencies reported. "This would be an important element in stabilizing the situation in the region," he said.
Lavrov is scheduled to hold talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Geneva on Friday in the highest-level meeting between the two nations since Obama took office.
At a February gathering of NATO defense chiefs in Krakow, Poland, Gates said that Washington would review the missile plan "in the context of our relationship with both Poland and the Czech Republic" as well as with NATO and Russia. The language marked a departure from the tone of the Bush administration, which enthusiastically promoted the plan and signed deals last year with Warsaw and Prague.
Gates said that if Moscow really wants to stop the missile shield, it should help eliminate the threat of a missile attack from Iran.
The Obama administration has been vocal about its desire to repair rifts between the U.S. and Russia. In Munich last month, Vice President Joe Biden told a gathering of world leaders, "It's time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia."
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