By Xinhua
Tehran : Visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia did not consider Iran as a threat and it should not be used to justify Washington’s plan to deploy an anti-missile system in eastern Europe.
“We do not see any threat from Iran and Russia’s leaders have said that many times,” said Lavrov, who was in Tehran to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Caspian Sea littoral states.
“We do not see any reason why the issue of an Iranian threat isbeing used for the United States to justify deploying missile defense systems in Europe,” he told a press conference.
Lavrov stressed that if the U.S. had any suspicion of such a threat, it could be removed by using the Gabala radar in Azerbaijan, as was proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit earlier this month.
Lavrov also said that he had outlined Russia’s proposals on the Gabala radar and its position on the missile shield to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
The United States suggested earlier this year that the missile shield be deployed in eastern Europe, featuring interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. The operation is expected to start in 2011.
Russia has repeatedly criticized the U.S. proposal, saying it will harm the regional security situation.
The United States, however, insisted that it would only target an alleged possible missile threat from Iran or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.