By RIA Novosti
Moscow : Russia has not yet received any written missile shield proposals from the US despite a pledge by the latter to submit them by Tuesday evening, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.
The top diplomats and defence chiefs of the two countries failed at talks held in Moscow Tuesday to reach an agreement on Washington’s plans to deploy a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Moscow views as a threat to its own security, but agreed to continue talks.
“Despite yesterday’s promises, we have not received any written proposals from the American side,” ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Wednesday.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put forward proposals to ease Moscow’s concerns, and said they would be finalized in writing.
Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the “2+2” talks had shown the sides’ positions remained unchanged, but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the new proposals put forward by Rice and Gates “useful and important”.
After the last round of talks between the four ministers in October 2007, the US sent written proposals that Russia said contradicted the agreements reached at the discussions.
On Tuesday, Rice admitted that there had been some discrepancies between the conceptual ideas put forward at the October meeting and the subsequent written proposals.