U.S. should freeze missile shield: Putin aide

Matt Spetalnick
Reuters
Thursday June 14, 2007

Washington should freeze development of its planned missile shield in eastern Europe while it weighs a counter-proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Kremlin spokesman said on Thursday.

President George W. Bush has signaled that the United States is pressing ahead with its missile defense system even as it evaluates Putin's alternative offer for joint use of a radar station that Russia controls in Azerbaijan.

Dmitry Peskov, deputy spokesman for the Russian government, said the dispute is "too complicated and too sensitive" to be resolved during July 1-2 talks between Bush and Putin at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

But he said there was hope for progress on the missile issue and on the future of Kosovo, another major point of contention between Washington and Moscow, at next month's summit.

Relations between Washington and Moscow have chilled as the United States has negotiated to place 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic as part of a global system to protect against missile threats from Iran and other countries it sees as "rogue" states.

Putin, keen to avoid a U.S. missile defense system near Russia's borders where Moscow says it could threaten its security, sprung his proposal on Bush last week at a summit of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations in Germany.

"We would appreciate it if the whole process in eastern Europe is frozen until we have a full understanding whether the (Putin) initiative is accepted or not," Peskov told a small group of reporters during a visit to Washington.

Bush has called the idea "interesting" but U.S. officials so far have withheld final judgment on the radar proposal.

However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told his Russian counterpart at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday that Putin's offer to share the Azeri radar site could not replace U.S. plans to site the missile shield in eastern Europe.

Peskov insisted that Russia saw the offer as a substitute for the U.S. plan and not as an addition to it.

He said that if the United States goes ahead with the missile shield, it would break the strategic balance of power in Europe and Russia would have to find a way to restore it.

Despite U.S. insistence it did not consider Moscow an enemy, Putin had threatened to revert to the Cold War practice of targeting missiles at Europe if Washington creates the anti-missile system.

Asked about the U.S.-Russia relationship, Peskov said it is "definitely not living through its golden age. But I wouldn't agree we're living through the worst since the Cold War."

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