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Putin tells US to back off
12/10/2007 17:26 - (SA)
Moscow - In a tense start to talks on a range of thorny issues, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned US officials to back off a plan to install missile defences in Eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow.
He also threatened to pull his country out of a Cold War-era treaty limiting intermediate range missiles unless it was extended to countries beyond the United States and Russia, which are now the only signatories.
Addressing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Putin appeared to mock the US missile defence plan, which is at the centre of a tangle of arms control and diplomatic disputes between the former adversaries.
"Of course we can sometime in the future decide that some anti-missile defence system should be established somewhere on the moon," Putin said, according to an English translation. "But before we reach such arrangements we will lose the opportunity for fixing some particular arrangements between us."
Later, at the start of a meeting with Rice and Gates, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Americans had presented "detailed proposals" to Putin on missile defence and arms control and a treaty on reducing conventional forces in Europe.
He offered no details but said the Russian government is ready to seek compromise, noting in particular Putin's eagerness to expand the treaty on intermediate missiles.
But both he and Rice said the two countries were committed to bridging those gaps.
Continue to pursue co-operation
"I know that we don't always see eye-to-eye on every element of the solutions to these issues," Rice said. "Nonetheless, I believe we will do this in a constructive spirit, that we will make progress during these talks as we continue to pursue co-operation."
The Russian government sees the US missile defence plan, which Washington describes as a hedge against the threat of missile attack from Iran, as a worrisome step toward weakening Russian security. It has been a long-standing dispute, and Putin's remarks seemed to raise the level of tensions.
Rice and Gates appeared taken aback at the forcefulness of Putin's remarks, which were made in the presence of American and Russian news media before they began a closed-door meeting around an oval table in an ornate conference room at his country house outside the capital.
"We will try to find ways to co-operate," Rice responded, looking at notes she had jotted while frowning at Putin as he spoke from what appeared to be a prepared text.
After keeping Rice and Gates waiting for 40 minutes, Putin began the session with a lengthy monologue in which he said Russia might have to abandon the 1987 missile treaty with the United States if it is not expanded to constrain other missile-armed countries.
Referring to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty negotiated between the United States and the former Soviet Union, Putin said it must be applied to other countries, including those "located in our near vicinity". He did not mention any by name.
Putin said the treaty must be made "universal in nature".
The pact eliminated the deployment of Soviet and American ballistic missiles of intermediate range and was a landmark step in arms control just two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and later the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Gates said the Pentagon was ready to intensify a dialogue on the matter, but he did not directly comment on the missile defence dispute.
Putin also has threatened to suspend Russian adherence to another arms control treaty, known as the Conventional Forces in Europe pact, which limits deployments of conventional military forces. Moscow wants it to be revised in ways that thus far have been unacceptable to US and European signatories.
- AP
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