if the. international association of russian language and literature teachers will hold the world festival of russian language. are you interested in a better understanding of russian language and culture can you sing russian songs well. become

a participant of the world festival of russian language and will an exciting trip to st petersburg in russia. for more information visit the festival website. time for the headlines here on r.t. moscow was cold thailand's extradition of russian businessman victor boot to the us illegal washington accuses the so-called the merchant of death of trafficking arms to dictators on conflict zones around the world. from the e.u. president warns that failing euro currency could drag the union down with ireland down portugal could be forced to accept beloff money to save their economies. and the u.s. and afghanistan at. trying to downplay rumors of

a dispute between them after president karzai criticized washington's tactics in the country meanwhile human rights activists claim there are cases of prisoner abuse waiting to be made public. well next we discuss why republican gains in the u.s. senate could put the future of the start treaty in jeopardy that's coming up in spotlight in just a moment. hello

again or welcome to spotlight the interview show on our tape i'm algernon's and today my guest in the studio is paul saunders. the u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton and secretary of defense robert gates say ratifying the new start to agreement is vital for the russia us reset processed as well as for world peace but with a republican majority in the house of representatives some skeptics say the goodwill feeling the reset process may be to rally out in washington do such fears water i hope they say director of the nixon center also others who asked the question. the u.s. leadership is trying hard to push through the new start treaty through the congress president obama has been meeting with republican leaders and he says they too want together treaty signed but inside the g.o.p.

not everyone appears to be in agreement some republicans have held up the voting saying they still have questions about the treaty if no action is taken soon new hearings will be required to treat the wretched occasion for at least two years and with the new start treaty becoming the plank ship for the whole reset process would it be a blow to improving u.s. russian relations. loomis owners welcome to the show thank you thank you thank you very much for being with us well first of all could the new start treaty become a casualty of the new political situation washington is that possible well it's certainly possible i don't think it has to happen by any stretch of the imagination certainly there are a number of senate republicans who have questions about the treaty but i think if the obama administration is prepared to work with them to answer their questions

and particularly to deal with their concerns about modernizing the u.s. nuclear arsenal i think the treaty can still be ratified possibly during the so-called lame duck session that the senate the congress has just started and if necessary after the new year in the new congress well a human should and some of the republicans that have questions about the treaty but some of them seem to have answers well for example former cia had republican james woolsey you wrote in the wall street journal recently i quote concessions to russian demands make a new start treaty the except do you think that the the. new majority in the house of representatives is already influencing negatively affecting the relations with russia or will it i don't think

that it has yet certainly whenever a leader in any country suffers an election defeat i think it raises questions internationally about how effective that leader can continue to be and i think in many countries around the world people are probably asking that question. about president obama. but you know the fact of the matter is he's still the president of the united states there are a number of things that he can do actually particularly in foreign policy without requiring. support or approval of the congress obviously treaties do require ratification in the senate and there are some other measures that require congressional action. and they are it may be a little bit more challenging. at this point i think it's more

a question of people adjusting their expectations whether it becomes more than that i think we'll have to see. search which state clinton and secretary of defense gates say i quote washington post the new start will advance critical national security providing direct insight into russia's nuclear arsenal and creating a more stable predictable and copper to relationship between the world's two leading nuclear powers and quote how would you explain the the the republican opposition to it well except being except trying to be nasty to democrats do they do they hear what clinton and gates and say well i think there are a number of specific concerns that republicans have been expressing and some of them are related directly to the treaty others are not related directly to the treaty but do relate to america's strategic posture. in terms of the treaty

specifically number of russian sorry of republicans were very concerned about the reference in the preamble to the treaty to missile defense and even mentioned james woolsey the former cia director that that's one of the issues that he raised. and number of republicans have raised expressing concern that the administration was so eager to according to this line of argument the administration was so eager to sign a treaty with russia. that they were prepared to make concessions related to america's ability to deploy missile defense and republicans have traditionally felt that missile defense is quite important the obama administration of course argues that the reference to missile defense is in the preamble to the treaty it's not in the text of the treaty and they they argue that

it's not legally binding now of course the russian government. feels strongly about missile defense and for its part has said that russia you know reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if something had if the united states pursues a missile defense policy that russia believes is threatening and it's entirely understandable that minister lavrov or other russian officials would want to say that but when they do say that it it strengthens the concern among senate republicans that the administration really may have agreed to some kind of limits on missile defense. russian parliament sessions feel still feel pretty optimistic i mean perspective the start treaty because because they say that that's according to the u.s. constitution it's the senate section of the senate which is responsible for party

policy and democrats still have a strong hold on the senate so so is it really the way it works is it is is it really will it really help. just say well certainly the ratification of treaties goes only to the senate you need sixty seven votes. the. democrats don't have sixty seven votes now in the senate and they have fifty they have fifty. in the next congress there will be several fewer. you know when you look at the congress more broadly including the house of representatives the congress has certainly important influence over foreign policy largely because it's the congress that approves the budget. and it's the house of representatives specifically that has to first propose the

legislation on the budget so if you're talking about foreign aid or defense spending or really any area of our foreign policy that requires spending money there's no question that the congress complain important part of the house foreign affairs committee chair. and. like to. just says i but obama should rethink that reset promise he would rush and quote well it has as straightforward as that how would you explain the fact that republicans kadek said it's bad policy well you know i certainly wouldn't i don't believe that republicans are monolithic on foreign policy i think that's the first thing to say is there are different views in terms of ileana ros

leighton who is currently the senior republican on the house foreign affairs committee and in january will be the chairman of the committee when the new congress comes in you know she has expressed concern for quite some time about russia and the u.s. russian relationship and russian conduct she's expressed particular concern about russian domestic affairs. she's also been quite concerned for some time about iran in the past. about russian assistance and dealings with their iran. more recently of course russia has been more supportive of the us position on iran but i think there are a number of people who hope that russia would do more than it's done these of iran and for many republicans i think you'll find that these two issues iran and

the governance issues i guess if i can describe it that way our particular concerns another particular concern would be russia's conduct towards its neighbors and certainly the war in georgia obviously there are different perspectives inside russia about why that took place but i think you'd find that many people in washington including in the congress were quite concerned about that. russia's role in that conflict well you know you mentioned it well i mean you mentioned ileana mentioned yeah but according to to a majority probably too should russia. russia has been giving up its positions can send you out to the states we've been as now you still washington as we could be

all of the iranian nuclear issue sanctions so on and so forth so so why why is mr ross lightnin so so so much concerned why is she so angry i mean i mean it sounds unconstructive i mean to me well you know i haven't read a lot of her recent statements so i don't want to focus too specifically on her but and certainly better than what i mean when you know russia russia certainly has on iran recently supported the united states on sanctions and of course president made of a day of signed this decree. banning the sale of the s three hundred missiles to iran which was certainly i think a major gesture toward the united states i think a number of people recognize that one challenge though i think is that there was over the period of many years of longstanding perception that developed

related to russia's cooperation with their on the bush era nuclear reactor two arms sales from russia to iran. russia obviously in the past had often. really reluctant to support the united states on iran and i think it takes. on one level it just takes some time for people to. move a little bit away from those longer held views says paul so owners of the executive's director of the nixon center spotlight will be back will continue to be in that then in minutes they.

house and. country house. in the. towns to the crimean. and welcome back to spotlight i'm al gore in love and just a reminder that my guest here in the studio today is paul saunders the executive director of the next in the senate where we're we're talking about russia's

relations with the united states and the possibility of of a change in these relations are the declaration of these relations if republicans of the republicans that are gaining more and more power in american policy and politics lately will start influencing the foreign policy more and more we just came to a sort of a conclusion at least this is how i got it that will republicans it's the worse moscow x. the better or the better in moscow it's the worst speaking about the concessions were made a run the well i'm not sure that i would necessarily have that but the so-called reset in the u.s. russia relations is considered president obama's biggest foreign policy achievement or it was consider at least let's take a look at some of the bilateral issues result in reported by spotlights you know that to me that. even though the reset button pushed by hillary clinton and syria the love rueben two thousand and nine had their own russian wording the

symbolic act did bring about an improvement in bilateral relations a major accomplishment is the new start treaty signed in april of two years of negotiations document calls for a big cut in nuclear weapons and is now a way to enrich if occasion another facet of the improvement in u.s. russia relations is moscow joining with the sanctions against iran moscow decided not to sell weapons to iran and i should liquids in the country around thirteen billion u.s. dollars another sign of the thaw in russia u.s. relations is corp on afghanistan including the russians agreement to allow nader's supplies to transit through the country the obama administration has also signaled it's ready. to remove russia from the jets and then it command that dates back to the nineteen seventies when the us used it as a trade weapon to push for easy integration from the soviet union to louis scene is

unheard of to russia's membership of the dudley. u.s. midterm elections have brought about concerns over the future of the reset and the republicans who the obama administration's policies. didn't agree with me but this is certainly was certainly a reminder of the time when both parties thought that the better is for the better right is it a fact of the past or are or are not necessarily you know i think. foreign policy like domestic policy can be an issue where there's a certain amount of domestic politics let me just make one point though about the new congress and the u.s. russian relationship which i don't think many people have focused on outside the united states and it's about the democrats the democrats lost about sixty seats in the house of representatives and the democrats who lost their seats were primarily

the moderate to conservative democrats and actually those were many of the democrats who were more supportive of the administration's policy toward russia many of the liberal democrats who are left in the house are precisely the democrats who have the greatest concerns about russia's domestic governance and moving forward next year i think we will find that it will gnaw only be republicans who have questions about the administration's policy i think the democrat minority in the house will also have a number of questions but as we mentioned. only and the republicans are also very diverse there are there are no consider themselves but there are people who

view the wars in iraq and afghanistan as the overseas equivalents of the high cost big government programs they reject to tell this is a quote from one of the papers who has more influence today if we take the right in both parties as they do in both parties from. capitol hill what also who has more is moving ahead sure sure i think there will be a real debate and i'll speak more about the republican party than democratic party i think there will be a real debate in the republican party over american foreign policy precisely on this question of cost this election cycle in the united states we really saw the so-called tea party faction. it's not really formally of the party of oblique they just found platform quite well and there was clearly a groundswell of grassroots public support. and primarily

behind a message of limiting government limiting government expenditure and this lines up with what people often call the more libertarian wing or the also the economically conservative white fiscally conservative wing of the republican party they aren't identical the libertarians and fiscal conservatives but both want to reduce expenditures and some of them want to reduce expenditures for the entire government including the department of defense not all of them do some of them do ok above my promise to lead that there i told the senators he said that the senate should vote for it the cation by the end of the year. and question is he going to keep this promise you're well just to wind up with this part of the interview what would you say yes and then well you know that's. great it's

a great promise to me when you're promising what other people will do what would be the first thing that i would say you know that that was the question to ask i mean you know it's a it's a brave promise to make. i think if the president is willing to do what needs to be done to get republican support then i think it will happen when he makes statements like that however he he risks one of two things the republicans deciding that he really needs it to happen and raising the price would be one thing. or it doesn't happen and then he made a promise that he doesn't deliver on presidencies all of. you know that's what he gets paid for is to make these big decisions sure but it was a fairly risky promise to make i think there is

a good chance that it will happen but you know it's not a certainty and a lot of it depends on him and what priority he's willing to give to the treaty ok let's turn to the russians and see what the russians think about copulation between their country and the united states spotlight's cuts at ullevi or another has tried to find out find it out in the streets of moscow. hi there well recently barack obama thing we need to meet the difficulty of the ration in afghanistan he said there's been a great company ration between the two countries transit issues in recent months well let's try to find out what there is between russia and the u.s. we need to be strengthened i think in the areas of advanced technology and innovation in technology because they're better developed in that area. in cinema talk graphy because their quality is much higher than ours i wish we could reach their level. in aircraft building in the auto industry i don't think we could

really work together in other areas because the competition is way too high i'm talking mainly about science because you can get in hydro power engineering. in military cooperation and mainly in politics countries should find global issues together. well. do you think that if russia in the u.s. would stop ideology ising their relations the volatile cooperation could develop way faster do you well there you know there's no question that i'm not sure i would call it ideology but i think i would focus more on psychology on both sides and there's no question that the psychology on both sides plays an important part in holding the relationship back as a matter of fact i think that our reporter just now i was merely quoting russian foreign minister lavrov this is merely what he said in japan sure sure sure and you know there's no question like i said that it's an issue there's

a lot of mutual suspicion on both sides i think there's a tendency on both sides when. americans see russia doing something or when russians see americans doing something if it's something that they don't like there's a tendency to assume the worst without necessarily having complete information and it's a problem for the relationship i you know how do we get beyond that i think there are two ways one way is time. because. there will be just a gradual generational transition and another way is by succeeding together at doing things that matter to people in both countries u.s. special representative ghana. and pakistan. i quote the nato summit in lisbon this weekend will mark a turning point in the prosecution of the wording of ghana's time as it lays out

a roadmap to end combat operations by twenty fourteen nato in afghanistan and quote do you think the summit will will really. show us the way to annex it out out out of the. well you know twenty four first thing i would say is twenty fourteen it's called from from twenty ten and a lot can happen in four years so. that would be my first comment. but for russia a country that's getting ready to host the olympic games in twenty first time is ready i want to go because. it depends on what you're trying to do when you're trying to build a lot of roads and buildings then maybe it's not very much time but. when you're waking up every morning what new thing might go wrong. very long. and the challenge in afghanistan of course is the very complicated situation.

so so we'll see. so you are you are really a well informed optimist but you actually make who you really are the. best thank you a little like you thank you for sharing your views with us and just a reminder that my guest today was paul saunders the executive director of the nixon said and that's it for now from all of us would be back with more first on comments on what's going on and outside russia until then stay on r.t. and take care thank you.