Obama urges Russia to cut nuclear arms by up to third

Berlin: US President Barack Obama on Wednesday called on Russia to agree strategic nuclear weapons cuts of up to a third and to also rein in strategic atomic arms.

In a keynote speech in Berlin, Obama also said he would lead two new Nuclear Security summits in his second term.

“These are steps we can take to create a world of peace with justice,” Obama said, addressing thousands at the city’s iconic Brandenburg Gate.

Under the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty negotiated with Moscow during Obama’s first term, the two former Cold War foes cut strategic nuclear weapons stocks to the 1,550 level.

A one-third cut in the arsenals would take them to the 1,000 weapons mark.

Russia has previously resisted cuts to the number of tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Europe, and President Vladimir Putin said ahead of Obama’s speech that Russia will not allow an imbalance in strategic nuclear deterrence.

“We cannot allow the balance of the system of strategic deterrence to be disturbed or the effectiveness of our nuclear force to be decreased,” Putin was quoted by Russian agencies as saying.

A top Kremlin aide also said Russia wanted other states to commit to nuclear cuts.

Obama has made cutting nuclear weapons stocks a centrepiece of his political legacy and is in theory committed to eradicating them all together.

In a wide-ranging speech that enumerated a litany of challenges facing the world, Obama said he wanted to reignite the spirit that Berlin displayed when it fought to reunite itself during the Cold War.

“Today’s threats are not as stark as they were half a century ago, but the struggle for freedom and security and human dignity, that struggle goes on,” Obama said at the city’s historic Brandenburg Gate under a bright, hot sun.

Obama’s address before a crowd of about 6,000 comes nearly 50 years after John F. Kennedy’s famous Cold War speech in this once-divided city.

It was a stark contrast to the speech he delivered in the city in 2008, when he summoned a crowd of 200,000 to embrace his vision for American leadership. Whereas that speech soared with his ambition, this time Obama came to caution his audience not to fall into self-satisfaction.

“Complacency is not the character of great nations,” Obama insisted.

“Today,” he said, “people often come together in places like this to remember history, not to make it. Today we face no concrete walls or barbed wire.”

Obama spoke repeatedly of seeking “peace with justice” around the world by confronting intolerance, poverty, Middle East conflicts and economic inequality.

Obama also pledged that the United States “will do more” to tackle the threat of climate change and said the world must do likewise before it is too late.

“Our generation must move towards a global compact to confront a changing climate before it is too late, that is our job, that is our task,” Obama said in a speech in Berlin.

Speaking on a blistering hot day at Brandenburg Gate, Obama said that “peace with justice means refusing to condemn our children to a harsher, less hospitable planet”.

He said Germany, which is fast building up solar, wind and other renewable energies, and Europe, had led in efforts to battle a warming planet, melting ice caps and rising seas.

He said the United States had also doubled renewable energies, boosted fuel efficiency in cars and brought down carbon emissions, but added: “We know we have to do more and we will do more.”

With a view to developing giants such as China and India, he added: “With a global middle class consuming more energy every day, this must now be an effort of all nations, not just some.

“For the grim alternative affects all nations. More severe storms, more famine and floods, new waves of refugees, coastlines that vanish, oceans that rise.”