BERLIN: Barack Obama yesterday proposed major cuts in US and Russian nuclear stocks, making a pitch for his own place in history in an evocative open-air speech during his first visit as president to Berlin.
In a wide-ranging speech that enumerated a litany of challenges facing the world, Obama said he wanted to reignite the spirit that Berlin displayed when it fought to reunite itself during the Cold War.
“Today’s threats are not as stark as they were half a century ago, but the struggle for freedom and security and human dignity, that struggle goes on,” Obama said at the city’s historic Brandenburg Gate under a bright, hot sun. “And I come here to this city of hope because the test of our time demands the same fighting spirit that defined Berlin a half-century ago.”
Almost 50 years to the day since John F. Kennedy declared “Ich bin ein Berliner” and 26 years since Ronald Reagan exhorted “Tear down this wall!” Obama unveiled plans for a one-third reduction in nuclear arsenals.
The US president proposed cutting US and Russian strategic nuclear warheads to around 1,000 each, and also sought cuts in tactical nuclear arms stocks in Europe.
It remains unclear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Obama had a frosty meeting at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday, will agree to such substantial weapons cuts. In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said Russia had told the United States it wanted other nuclear armed states to commit to reductions. The United States has around 20 nuclear warheads still stationed in Germany, down from about 200 when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Germans had eagerly awaited the pageantry of Obama’s first trip to their capital as president, but his arrival had been preceded by sharp questions about the scope of National Security Agency (NSA) programs. Obama, under fire at home and abroad over the snooping, sought to assure Germans the system was limited in scope and legal.
“This is not a situation where we are rifling through, you know, the ordinary e-mails of German citizens or American citizens or French citizens or anyone else,” Obama said after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He argued that “lives have been saved” because of the use of the surveillance system. “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted — not just in the United States, but in countries around the world, including Germany,” he said.
In a wide-ranging speech that enumerated a litany of challenges facing the world, Obama said he wanted to reignite the spirit that Berlin displayed when it fought to reunite itself during the Cold War.
“Today’s threats are not as stark as they were half a century ago, but the struggle for freedom and security and human dignity, that struggle goes on,” Obama said at the city’s historic Brandenburg Gate under a bright, hot sun. “And I come here to this city of hope because the test of our time demands the same fighting spirit that defined Berlin a half-century ago.”
Almost 50 years to the day since John F. Kennedy declared “Ich bin ein Berliner” and 26 years since Ronald Reagan exhorted “Tear down this wall!” Obama unveiled plans for a one-third reduction in nuclear arsenals.
The US president proposed cutting US and Russian strategic nuclear warheads to around 1,000 each, and also sought cuts in tactical nuclear arms stocks in Europe.
It remains unclear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Obama had a frosty meeting at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday, will agree to such substantial weapons cuts. In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said Russia had told the United States it wanted other nuclear armed states to commit to reductions. The United States has around 20 nuclear warheads still stationed in Germany, down from about 200 when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Germans had eagerly awaited the pageantry of Obama’s first trip to their capital as president, but his arrival had been preceded by sharp questions about the scope of National Security Agency (NSA) programs. Obama, under fire at home and abroad over the snooping, sought to assure Germans the system was limited in scope and legal.
“This is not a situation where we are rifling through, you know, the ordinary e-mails of German citizens or American citizens or French citizens or anyone else,” Obama said after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He argued that “lives have been saved” because of the use of the surveillance system. “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted — not just in the United States, but in countries around the world, including Germany,” he said.
The programs, which have special resonance in a nation where snooping operations by the communist Stasi secret police are a painful memory, have triggered alarm in Berlin.
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