Russia snubs Obama secret offer

“No one links these issues to any exchange,especially on the Iran issue,” Interfax reported that Medvedev said at a news conference in Madrid,where he was visiting to boost economic and political ties.

“What we are getting from our US partners shows at least one thing: Our US partners are ready to discuss the issue,” he said. “It’s good,because several months ago we were getting different signals — that the decision has been made,there is nothing to speak about,that we have done everything as we have decided.”

The Obama letter was hand-delivered in Moscow by top administration officials three weeks ago. It said the US would not need to proceed with the interceptor system,which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration,if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

The officials who described the contents of the message requested anonymity. While they said it did not offer a direct quid pro quo,the letter was intended to give Moscow an incentive to join the US in a common front against Iran. Russia’s military,diplomatic and commercial ties to Tehran give it some influence there,but it has often resisted Washington’s hard line against Iran.

“It’s almost saying to them,put up or shut up,” said an official. “It’s not that the Russians get to say,‘We’ll try and therefore you have to suspend.’ It says the threat has to go away.”

The issue was expected to be discussed further at a meeting on Friday in Geneva between Foreign Minister Sergey V Lavrov and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama and Medvedev will meet for the first time on April 2 in London,officials said.

Obama’s letter,sent in response to one he received from Medvedev shortly after Obama’s inauguration,is,officials in Washington said,part of an effort to “press the reset button” on Russian-American relations.

The plan to build a radar facility in the Czech Republic and deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland — a part of the world Russia once considered its sphere of influence — was a top priority for President Bush to deter Iran in case it developed a nuclear warhead to fit atop its long-range missiles. Bush never accepted a Moscow proposal to install part of the missile system on its territory and jointly operate it so it could not be used against Russia.