Medvedev has high hopes of Obama presidency
Dmitry Medvedev looks to improved US-Russian relations when George Bush leaves office
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Sunday, 16, Nov 2008 08:56
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has revealed he anticipates improved relations with the United States once Barack Obama takes office at the White House.
Mr Medvedev told an audience in Washington he hoped Mr Obama's inauguration would signal a return to a spirit of "mutual trust" that he said had been lacking in the tail-end of the Bush administration.
"We pin such hopes on the arrival of the new US administration," Mr Medvedev told the Council on Foreign Relations following the G20 summit.
Mr Obama's election victory at the beginning of November had coincided with Russia installing short-range missiles in Kaliningrad as an answer to the controversial US missile defence shield in eastern Europe.
Washington insists the missiles are designed as protection against 'rogue states' but Moscow has repeatedly claimed the shield represents a threat to its military.
In softer words on Saturday night, Mr Medvedev pointed to greater cooperation on future defence systems.
"It's better to have a global missile defence rather than kind of fractured national elements," Mr Medvedev said.
"We have a chance to solve the problem through either agreeing on a global system or, as a minimum, to find a solution on the existing programmes which would suit the Russian Federation."
US-Russian relations plunged to a post-cold war low following Moscow's military response to Georgian shelling of breakaway region South Ossetia.
But Mr Medvedev said there was "no anti-Americanism in Russia" and that he wanted Moscow to have the same "fully-fledged" relationship it enjoyed with China with the US.