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Russian Wants Dialogue With U.S. on Limited Missile Defenses
Russia's foreign minister said today in Geneva that his country and the United States should undertake an "active and meaningful" dialogue as soon as possible to develop defenses against ballistic missiles in troubled parts of the world.
But the minister, Igor S. Ivanov, reiterated Moscow's opposition to any plan to erect a national missile defense over the United States in violation of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
Addressing a meeting of the United Nations Disarmament Conference, Mr. Ivanov told the delegates from 66 member nations that Russia would work to develop "a whole package of constructive political and diplomatic measures" together with technical cooperation with the United States and its allies, to build an effective alternative to national missile defense.
The goal of these measures, he said, would be to "dispel concerns, not only by the United States, about the so-called new missile threats" from some countries, while at the same time "preserving the ABM treaty."
The Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, advocates going forward with a national antimissile system, as well as theater antimissile systems.
Mr. Ivanov made his remarks a day after President Bush spoke briefly on the telephone to Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, though spokesmen for the two leaders would not say whether they had discussed the antimissile proposal, which has become the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's national security strategy.
Among the major nuclear powers, Russia and China have spoken out forcefully against abandoning the ABM treaty, but under Mr. Putin, Russia has moderated its position, saying it recognizes the threat from the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Last summer, Mr. Putin offered to cooperate with the United States and European powers on theater missile defenses that could be brought to bear against any threatening nation.
At the current session in Geneva, China also criticized the Bush administration's antimissile plans. Ambassador Hu Xiaodi accused Washington of seeking "unilateral absolute superiority" in strategic arms to enable it to engage in "nuclear blackmail" against other nuclear powers.
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