BELGIUM: U.S. says Russia offer cannot replace missile shield

Record ID: 731244

  • Title: BELGIUM: U.S. says Russia offer cannot replace missile shield
  • Date: 15th June 2007
  • Summary: BULGARIAN DEFENCE MINISTER VESELIN BLIZNAKOV ARRIVING BLIZNAKOV TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Bulgarian) BULGARIAN DEFENCE MINISTER, VESELIN BLIZNAKOV, SAYING: "We do believe that these concerns have been addressed and understood. And NATO is taking adequate measures. We believe the U.S. system that is going to be built added to the NATO system would contribute and also sort out that issue. And including third parties and third countries to that process would just complicate the issue. What we just need is the U.S. and the one which would be added by NATO." EXTERIOR OF NATO HEADQUARTERS
  • Embargoed: 30th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA6A0KW0WLK68XQW426BXUWD5LG
  • Story Text: The United States told Russia on Thursday (June 14) a Kremlin offer to share a radar site in Azerbaijan could not replace U.S. plans to site a missile shield in eastern Europe.
    The United States plans to use interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic, a configuration Washington says is ideal for blocking any missile, particularly from Iran, heading towards the United States and most of Europe.
    Diplomats said Russia's Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov repeated Moscow's view that it saw the Azeri radar station as a substitute for the planned Czech site while Gates affirmed it could only be an adjunct.
    While some analysts have questioned how technically viable the proposal is, the United States is portraying the offer as a sign the Russians have accepted many of its arguments, notably that a threat from "rogue state" missiles does exist.
    U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed that the Russian offer was no alternative to the U.S. plan which Moscow opposes.
    His statement at NATO HQ in Brussels on Thursday (June 14) after meeting Serdyukov showed that there was no advance on earlier positions.
    "Yes I was very explicit in the meeting that we saw the Azeri radar as an additional capability. That we intended to proceed with the radar, the X-band radar, in the Czech Republic," Gates said.
    Russia has said the U.S. scheme is a threat to its own security and that the proposed U.S. bases on its doorstep could be converted to more dangerous uses in the future.
    Tension between Washington and Moscow alarmed European NATO members, particularly after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to target Russian missiles on Europe if Washington went ahead with building the shield.
    Gates said there seem to be a will to tone down the rhetoric
    "One theme of several of the representatives from the Alliance during the meeting was the need to modulate rhetoric and for us to deal on a businesslike basis with one another," Gates said.
    Gates also responded to a question on suspected arms shipments from Iran to Afghanistan.
    "President Karzai at our press conference in Afghanistan last week stressed the importance of good relationships between the governments of Iran and Afghanistan and that may have had some influence on minister Wardak's, (Afghan Defence Minister) statement. I can't go any further than I did in the earlier statement to the effect that I have seen analysis suggesting a considerable flow of weapons and support from Iran and I have not seen information that would directly tie to approval by the government of Iran. That said, as I indicated, I think that it's the quantity that we are seeing makes it difficult to believe that the Iranian government doesn't have some indication or some knowledge of it," he said.
    On the missile defence issue, NATO defence ministers agreed to explore building a "bolt-on" missile defence system that would plug gaps in a planned U.S. shield in Europe.
    NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the shield would not cover all NATO allies, with analysts seeing Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria at risk.
    The study should be completed by next February and NATO officials hope the alliance can agree by a summit in April in Romania to start work on such a system, which would deploy complementary interceptors to cover southeast Europe.
    Bulgaria, a country which together with Romania, Greece and Turkey, are not covered by the shield programme, says it wants to the U.S. and NATO defence mechanisms to overlap.
    "We do believe that these concerns have been addressed and understood. And NATO is taking adequate measures. We believe the U.S. system that is going to be built added to the NATO system would contribute and also sort out that issue. And including third parties and third countries to that process would just complicate the issue. What we just need is the U.S. and the one which would be added by NATO," said Bulgarian Defence Minister Veselin Bliznakov.
    Gates played down hopes of an early end to the months-long dispute with Moscow over the plan.
    Gates said Serdyukov did not respond to his remarks during the meeting but diplomats said Serdyukov had earlier reaffirmed that Moscow sees the Azeri proposal as replacing the existing U.S. plan.
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