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US Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew to Moscow Monday to try to
persuade Russian leaders to cooperate with the United States on its
plans for defenses in Europe to counter a missile threat from Iran.
Gates is the latest—and most senior—of a
series of high-ranking US officials to join an intensifying debate
in Europe over the plans to station US interceptor missiles in
Poland and a targeting radar in the Czech Republic.
The United States offered to share
missile-warning data and cooperate in developing and testing of
missile defense technology with the Russians in meetings last week
in Moscow and at NATO, officials said.
“Basically we outlined a series of areas where
we might be able to cooperate with Russia, and this involves both
sharing of information and potentially of technology,” said a
senior administration official who briefed reporters traveling with
Gates.
“It includes things like sharing sensor data
for early warning, common research and development, testing of
various components of systems,” the official said, aboard a Cold
War-era US air force command plane that flew him to Russia.
Some elements of the package have been proposed
to the Russians before but others are new, he said, declining to
provide greater detail.
Gates will meet Monday with President Vladimir
Putin, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, national security chief
Igor Ivanov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.
“I hope we at least get a preliminary response
from the Russians on what we’ve shown them. But I wouldn’t
expect them to have had the time to do all the analysis to give a
definitive answer,” said the official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Instead, Gates’ visit will raise to a new
level an intensifying campaign to gain Russian acquiescence and
allied support as Washington concludes negotiations with the Czech
Republic and Poland on the missile defense sites in the coming
months.
The issue will be taken up on Thursday at an
informal meeting of NATO and Russian foreign ministers in Oslo, at a
NATO defense ministers meeting in June and a meeting between
President George W. Bush and Putin on the sidelines of the G-8
summit in Germany later this year, officials said.
After his meetings in Moscow, Gates will travel
to Warsaw Tuesday to confer with Polish leaders and also stop in
Berlin to touch base with German leaders who have pressed Washington
to take into account Russia’s concerns.
The US plans call for stationing 10 interceptor
missiles in Poland and a targeting radar in the Czech Republic to
counter potential medium and long range missiles launched from Iran.
So far, the Russians have shown little interest
in the US proposals, questioning whether Iranian missiles pose a
threat to Europe and bridling at US military encroachment in areas
once in the orbit of the Soviet Union.
“We cannot understand what Eastern Europe
needs this system for,” Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying by
Interfax last week. “I honestly see no basis for speaking of
possible cooperation.”
US officials traveling with Gates said that
while they believed cooperation on missile defense was in both
countries’ interest, Russia would not have a veto on the missile
defense plans.
“We don’t recognize spheres of influence and
the Russians arguably in my view on some level recognize that a gray
zone to their west, a zone of insecurity and doubt would not be in
their interest,” said another senior US official.
“A Europe whole free and at peace where
democracy is consolidated and security is more and more taken as an
article of reality is in their interest,” he said.
The proposed missile sites must pass
parliamentary muster in the Czech Republic and Poland.
“I don’t think these discussions with either
Poland and the Czech Republic are going to be slam dunks,” said
the first administration official.
--AFP
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