BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was encouraged that Washington had listened to Russian concerns about the planned U.S. missile shield site and said discussions would continue.
By Oleg Shchedrov and Justyna Pawlak
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was encouraged that Washington had listened to Russian concerns about the planned U.S. missile shield site and said discussions would continue.
"What is positive in today's dialogue is that our concerns about ensuring our own security, if the missile shield proposed by our American partners is deployed, have been heard," Putin told a news conference after meeting U.S. President George W. Bush and other NATO leaders in Bucharest.
"The visit to Russia of the U.S. Defense Secretary (Robert Gates) and the U.S. Secretary of State (Condoleezza Rice) showed that our U.S. partners are thinking about measures to improve confidence and transparency and that work will continue," he said of their visit to Moscow last month.
!ADVERTISEMENT!Washington plans to install 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic as part of the missile defense system.
The United States says the shield is necessary to protect against missile strikes by what it calls rogue states, specifically Iran. Moscow says it believes the shield will be a threat to its national security.
Putin told reporters the missile shield would be discussed in more detail when U.S. President George W. Bush visits the Russian leader at his Black Sea vacation home in Sochi this weekend.
PROGRESS POSSIBLE
"Today we mentioned the missile shield problem but in passing. I think the main discussions with our American partners will be tomorrow when the U.S. president comes to Sochi and the day after that, when we will have wider discussions."
Washington has offered compromise proposals on the missile shield which include allowing Russian inspectors access to the installations and keeping the system dormant unless an imminent attack has been identified.
Diplomats say progress is possible on these proposals in Sochi, though Moscow is highly unlikely to drop its opposition to the shield entirely.
Speaking in Bucharest, Putin described the missile shield, along with issues such as Kosovo and NATO enlargement, as factors that "do not improve the predictability and trust of our relationship, and do not help it progress towards a new status."
Putin said the shield was evidence of Western military might creeping towards Russian borders, something he said should have been consigned to history when the Iron Curtain fell.
"We closed our bases in Cam Ranh Bay (Vietnam), on Cuba, we took our bases out of Eastern Europe. And what did we get? (U.S.) bases in Romania, bases in Bulgaria, the missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland."
"This is all the movement of military infra-structure towards our borders."
(Reporting by Justyna Pawlak and Oleg Shchedrov; writing by Mark John and Christian Lowe; Editing by Timothy Heritage)
