Pending START Treaty Gets Restarted

The pending START treaty, signed by Barack Obama but not yet approved by the Senate, is being reheated by the president after his trip to Asia and is set to be a top priority of both the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress before newly elected Republican lawmakers arrive in January. —JCL

Los Angeles Times:

President Obama made one departing promise as he wrapped up his meeting with world leaders here Sunday, telling his Russian counterpart that he will make approval of their nuclear agreement a top priority in the final days of the Democratic Congress.

In what one official called a “full-court press” on Capitol Hill, the administration is arguing that the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is critical to the future of U.S.- Russia relations, and that dragging things out could do irreparable damage.

“The president has made it very clear publicly that this is his highest priority in terms of foreign policy pieces of business to get done in the lame duck session,” a senior administration official said here Sunday. “And if the president says that, then the rest of us are doing everything we can to make that happen.”

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AP / Charles Dharapak

President Barack Obama meets with President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Yokohama, Japan.