PREVIEW-U.S. to press Russia again over missile shield
25 Apr 2007 01:32:01 GMT Source: Reuters
By Mark John BRUSSELS, April 25 (Reuters) - The United States will make a new pitch to Russia at NATO talks in Oslo on Thursday over its planned missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, but diplomats doubt there will be any movement from Moscow soon. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov three days after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates failed during a trip to Moscow to convince Russia the shield was not a strategic threat to it. "It's too early. The Russians need more time to look at the U.S. offer, which is very technical," said one NATO diplomat, asking not to be named. Gates has tried to allay Russian objections to the planned shield by offering Moscow cooperation, for example by sharing data from early warning systems and conducting joint exercises. Washington angered Moscow and unnerved some allies with its plan to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic from 2012 to help shield the United States from possible attack by countries such as Iran and North Korea. While Moscow has yet to be persuaded by the U.S. campaign to assure it the system cannot be a threat to Moscow, NATO allies appear satisfied after detailed presentations of the plan inside the 27-nation alliance. Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said after meeting Gates on Monday that Moscow saw the system as a "serious destabilising factor". Gates spoke of progress at the talks. NO INTEREST On Tuesday, Lavrov told reporters Moscow saw no interest in joining a project it felt had already been pre-determined in Washington. "We cannot really see that we could join. We simply don't see the interest in doing so," he said in Luxembourg. "What we see in the American offer is several ideas that don't contain the principle of a joint analysis of the threat." Diplomats said a U.S. presentation of the shield plan at NATO headquarters last Thursday met no objections from allies such as Germany, which had strongly urged Washington to better inform NATO allies and Russia of its plans. "It was accepted that the United States, of course, has the right to develop such a system for itself," one senior alliance diplomat said. The scope of the U.S. shield would in theory offer protection to most NATO European countries, although analysts say knotty questions remain about who would have the final say on whether to pre-empt a possible attack. NATO allies must now decide whether they want to pay for smaller shields to plug gaps in the U.S. shield, which would not cover Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. At their meeting on Thursday and Friday, NATO ministers will also review peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan and meet Ukrainian Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk for talks likely to focus on the political power struggle in Kiev. The talks on Afghanistan will be closely watched to see if the United States presses demands on reluctant allies to commit more troops to fighting the insurgency. Violence has been increasing since the usual winter lull and U.S., British and Canadian troops have borne the brunt of it. Gates this month called on European allies that do not have troops engaged in combat to instead supply 3,400 trainers for the Afghan army.
