In a sign that the long diplomatic freeze on the BMD issue between Washington and Moscow is likely to thaw once President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January, RIA Novosti reported that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said Wednesday the two sides had already approved the revival of negotiations on strategic security and missile defense next month.

U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in early November to prepare for the new round of ballistic missile defense talks and other strategic negotiations, RIA Novosti said.

Also, a Kremlin official told RIA Novosti Wednesday that Russian leaders were optimistic on reaching an agreement with the new Democratic administration. However, they wanted to hear first what President Obama and his team will propose to them after taking office.

During the yearlong U.S. election campaign, Sen. Obama, D-Ill., and his advisers expressed skepticism about the value of building the BMD base in Poland. The Democrat-controlled 110th Congress, unwilling to publicly clash with President George W. Bush on the issue before the Nov. 4 presidential election, slashed large sums that the White House wanted to allocate to the program in the Fiscal Year 2009 budget but did not try to kill it.

Russian policymakers, familiar with these developments, clearly regard them as positive and are signaling that they are prepared to deal with Obama and his team.

"A compromise is still possible," the Russian official told RIA Novosti.

"However, the current U.S. proposals are insufficient ... because the Bush administration is seeking to make the decision (on the deployment of the missile shield) irreversible and ... leave the new U.S. president without an alternative, putting on him the burden of responsibility for something that was decided without him," the official said.

The Bush administration announced Nov. 6 it had presented a new set of proposals to try to reassure the Kremlin that its plans to position 10 Ground-based Mid-course Interceptors in Poland, with an advanced radar tracking array in the neighboring Czech Republic to guide them on to their targets, were not aimed at Russia. But over the past two years Russian leaders have repeatedly rejected such claims and the Bush administration did no better this time, especially as the proposals were made two days after Obama's historic election victory, which automatically put the Bush White House into lame-duck status.

RIA Novosti noted that the Russian government was sticking to its determination to refuse to negotiate any further with the Bush administration on the BMD bases issue. Instead, it is withholding any comments on the U.S. proposals until Obama takes office two months from now.

The Kremlin official also told RIA Novosti that Russia wanted future talks on the BMD in Europe issue to involve the European Union as well and that any unilateral actions to build it, such as the Bush administration had sought, would remain unacceptable.

RIA Novosti said a lasting settlement on the issue would have to be established on a basis of respect for common interests between the United States, Russia and the European Union.

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