Russia will defend its national security and raise many unanswered questions in talks with the United States next week on its planned anti-missile shield, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday.
"Obviously Russia will carry out consultations which will take into account the interests of its own security. There are many questions to which the Americans have not given us answers," he told journalists after meeting his German counterpart Rudolf Scharping.
Senior US and Russian defense officials are to hold consultations in Washington Tuesday and Wednesday on US missile defense plans and a Washington proposal to replace the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty with a looser set of security arrangements.
The United States wants to build a missile defense shield to protect itself against possible threats from "rogue states" such like North Korea, Iran and Iraq -- which Moscow opposes and which would violate ABM.
President Vladimir Putin agreed to the talks last month after US President George W. Bush linked missile defense with deeper cuts in strategic nuclear arsenals.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will then go to Moscow for talks August 13-14 with Ivanov.
Bush and Putin are due to meet on the sidelines of the October 20-21 APEC summit in Shanghai, with the Russian leader also expected to visit Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas the following month.
Washington has set a fast pace for the talks because unless an accommodation is worked out with Moscow its missile defense testing plans will run up against ABM Treaty limits as early as February -- SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
