It turns out that Obama’s first visit overseas as President is proving to be very useful, as expected. Everyone having doubts about Obama and everyone who just love to be against the hype have another thing coming.
On March 31st, 2009, soon after his arrival in London, England, President Barack Obama made his way to the United States embassy residence in Regent’s Park for his meeting with the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. The two planned to review two documents: Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1) and a general declaration on US-Russian relations. Obama and Medvedev were able to turn a new page and overcome lingering tensions between both countries since the Cold War. To increase credibility regarding the political congruity between the United States and Russia, they even released a joint statement after the discussion of issues of mutual interest. Although the treaty will not be completed until sometime this summer when Obama visits Moscow, talk of reducing and limiting offensive weapons have already begun.
Both Presidents discussed the issues with no major obstacles, possibly due to their somewhat similar backgrounds in law. Obama graduated from Harvard Law School(1) and Medvedev graduated from Leningrad State University(2), two schools with well-reputed law faculties. Their perspectives may also have been very much alike due to their bits of teaching experience in their studied fields.
The two Presidents also shared strong interest in two particular areas: reducing the threat of terrorism and improving the world’s economy.
Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev are doing their best to clean up the mess that ex-Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin left them with. Whether these goals are achievable is hard to predict, only time will tell.
(1) http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/president_obama/
(2) http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/dmitrymedvedev.html
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