Obama nuclear speech plays off Russia talks

President Obama will unveil a comprehensive strategy to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons that builds on his discussions last week with Russia, an adviser said Saturday.

Obama met for the first time with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Wednesday, in part to lay the groundwork for his administration’s multilateral efforts to bring down the number of existing nuclear weapons and pressure non-nuclear states such as Iran from pursuing the weaponry.

{mosads}“This is an effort that will have many parts and it will advance fundamental U.S. national security interests,” Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told reporters aboard Air Force One.

“What you’ll see tomorrow is not a follow on to the London meeting with President Medvedev, so much as a much more comprehensive framework into which the work that he has undertaken with President Medvedev fits,” said McDonough.

Obama is scheduled to give an address in Prague on Sunday detailing the steps he plans to take based on principles he outlined during his presidential campaign and legislative efforts he made during his tenure in the Senate alongside Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), McDonough said.

McDonough indicated that Iran’s ongoing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, which the United States and Israel strenuously oppose as a threat to regional stability in the Middle East, would be a particular focus of the policy.

The president wants to reinforce a nuclear strategy that will “give the United States and our allies additional moral suasion, as the president has underscored, in making sure that Iran does not develop these weapons,” McDonough said.