Russian analysts said today bargaining between Moscow and Washington over US plans for missile defence could begin in earnest now US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to link missile defence to nuclear arms cuts.
Returning to Moscow, President Putin said his meeting with President Bush had failed to produce a breakthrough and that Moscow was sticking to the bilateral Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, the main stumbling block in the way of the US missile defence plan.
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The ABM pact bans missile defence systems, and Russia has said that amending or scrapping the treaty would trigger a new arms race.
"There has been no principal breakthrough, indeed," President Putin told top ministers today."We confirmed our commitment to the 1972 ABM pact."
But military experts said that the announcement by President Putin and President Bush in Genoa on Sunday that they had agreed to widen the frame of talks meant that both parties were serious about making progress.
"Now that there is no hope that the Americans will abandon missile defence system plans, expanding the talks can mean only one thing - a search for compromise," said Mr Alexander Pikayev of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank.
"The Kremlin gave a signal it is ready to change ABM.Moscow has sent several signals that it wants no showdown with Washington over ABM and is looking for a deal."
Last month, General Leonid Ivashov, a hawk and then head of the Defence Ministry's foreign relations department, told Russian news agencies he did not rule out changes to the pact.
Earlier this month, President Putin said after talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin that Moscow would undertake no joint steps with Beijing - equally alarmed by missile defence plans - if Washington dumped ABM.