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Moscow: To consider military means on US missile shield

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-07-09 10:34

The Russian government has warned that Moscow could be forced to take military means, not diplomatic methods, to cope with the possible deployment of a US missile defense system being planned for East Europe.

Two interceptor missiles are launched during a test for the Missile Defense programme in Hawaii. The USA has said that Russia and Europe should be "equal partners" in its planned missile defence, after Moscow warned to react militarily to any deployment near its borders. [Agencies/US Navy/File]

The United States signed a pact on Tuesday to build part of a missile defense shield in the Czech Republic that would place a tracking radar southwest of Prague, the Associated Press reported.

The Bush administration said it will continue its dialogue with Russia on the shield system.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in a policy statement Tuesday, said: "If the real deployment of an American strategic missile defense shield begins close to our borders, then we will be forced to react not with diplomatic methods, but with military-technical methods."

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters in Japan, where the leaders are attending the annual G 8 summit, that U.S. President George W. Bush has told his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev that the United States seeks "strategic cooperation on preventing missiles from rogue nations from threatening our friends and allies.”

"We want to design a system between the United States, Russia and Europe, with everyone participating as equal partners," Johndroe said.

"We will continue to have a dialogue with the Russians on this matter as Presidents Bush and Medvedev reaffirmed this week in their meeting in Japan," he said.