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Rice, Gates To Discuss Missile Defenses In Moscow

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  • Rice, Gates To Discuss Missile Defenses In Moscow

    RICE, GATES TO DISCUSS MISSILE DEFENSES IN MOSCOW

    PanARMENIAN.Net
    17.03.2008 16:00 GMT+04:00

    /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russia's outgoing president and his elected successor
    will meet with top U.S. officials arriving in Moscow Monday for talks
    on missile defenses in Europe, a Kremlin official said.

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary
    Robert Gates are to meet with their Russian counterparts to discuss
    Washington's plans to install a radar in the Czech Republic and
    a missile base in Poland, which Moscow is opposed to calling the
    proposal a national security threat.

    "A meeting between Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, Condoleezza
    Rice and Robert Gates will take place in the Kremlin today," the
    official said.

    Gates was quoted by foreign agencies as saying en route to Moscow
    that the United States will offer no new proposals in Moscow and
    wants the Kremlin to make the next move.

    "We've put a lot on the table and now it's time for them to
    reciprocate," Gates said.

    The U.S. argues the bases are designed to counter missile attacks from
    'rogue' states like Iran.

    Washington offered late last year to allow Russian officials access to
    the proposed sites to ensure the radar is not targeted at Russia and
    interceptor missiles are kept non-operational until Iran's long-range
    missiles have been proved as a threat.

    Russia's Foreign Ministry said earlier the measures could "not resolve
    the issue of creating a system to monitor missile threats throughout
    the world," but gave Russia "the opportunity to see that the U.S.'
    unilateral actions... do not pose a direct threat to the country at
    the given moment."

    The ministry said the U.S. and Russian officials would also focus on
    Russia's unilateral moratorium on the Conventional Forces in Europe
    (CFE) treaty and on a new strategic arms reduction treaty to replace
    START-I, which expires in December 2009, RIA Novosti reports.
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