Washington, Oct 6, SPA — The United States on Friday proposed a common network of missile-defense systems with Russia and NATO to calm Moscow’s concerns over a planned U.S. missile-defense system in central Europe.
“The answer is we and the Russians and NATO, or the NATO-Russia Council, work together to produce a common system or common network of systems which would benefit everyone’s security and also address Russian security concerns,” said Daniel Fried, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
“If they are part of the system, they can be much more confident that it is not directed against them,” said Fried, speaking ahead of talks in Moscow on October 12 between Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and their Russian counterparts.
The U.S. officials will meet with Russian Defense Secretary Anatoly Serdyukov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following stalled negotiations earlier this month between the two sides in Paris on the planned U.S. missile-defense system.
The proposed system in central Europe has caused friction between Russia and the United States. Washington contends the system would protect against “rogue states” such as Iran, and wants to build a radar-tracking base in the Czech Republic and put interceptor missiles in Poland.
Moscow has said the system would compromise its nuclear deterrence and create a “new Berlin Wall,” and President Vladimir Putin has suggested placing the system in Azerbaijan. The Kremlin also threatened to redeploy nuclear missiles aimed at Europe if the United States moves forward with the project.
Fried said Russian plans to share the radar station in Azerbaijan or a radar site in southern Russia opened the possibility of having “genuinely collaborative efforts on missile defense directed at common problems.”
“We would like to see the whole question opened up as it were with everything on the table-what NATO is doing; what U.S., Poles, and Czechs may be doing; what Russia is prepared to offer,” Fried told a news conference. “So, this is a very far reaching proposal by the Russians which I hope would have some very good potential areas of cooperation.”