#2
AFP
Russia set to "minimise" US withdrawal from ABM: FM
June 13, 2002
Russia hopes to "minimise" the effects of the United States'
withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov was quoted as saying.
Russia regretted the US move, which formally takes effect this week, to
abrogate the treaty seen by Moscow as a cornerstone of arms limitation
agreements for 30 years," Ivanov told Interfax in the Canadian city of
Whistler.
"The primary aim is to minimise the negative consequences of the US
withdrawal from the ABM treaty," the Russian foreign minister added.
"Thanks to Russia's efforts, the negotiating process on strategic
offensive weapons and missile defence has not been terminated," Ivanov
said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart George W. Bush signed
a historic deal at a summit in Moscow last month slashing each side's nuclear
arsenals by two thirds to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads over the next decade.
However Bush gave notice in December, despite Russian objections, that the
United States would unilaterally withdraw from the 1972 treaty signed with the
now-defunct Soviet Union in order to develop an anti-missile defence system.
The first step towards the Bush administration's new missile doctrine is set
for Saturday, when Air Force General Ronald Kadish, head of the Missile Defence
Agency, attends a ceremony to break ground on silos for six interceptor missiles
at Fort Greely, Alaska. It is due to be completed by September 2004.
It will be the first time in 30 years that there are no constraints on
Washington's ability to test and deploy systems able to down long-range enemy
missiles.
Bush, who has dismissed the ABM treaty as a "relic of the Cold
War," believes the United States is vulnerable to long-range missile attack
coming from Iran, Iraq or North Korea, nations he regards a part of an
"axis of evil."
So far, the Pentagon has successfully shot down four "enemy"
missiles in seven preliminary tests, but US critics of the missile defence plan
note the shield would have done nothing to stop the attacks of September 11.
Philip Coyle, a senior Pentagon official under former US president Bill
Clinton, wrote in the Washington Post that the basic missile program would cost
70 billion dollars.
But he added that some 20 developmental tests, each costing 100 million
dollars would be needed before the program could advance to the next stage of
realistic operational testing.
Russia, China and the United States' European allies initially protested
Bush's decision to pull out of the ABM treaty, but even in Moscow that
opposition has become muted with Russian firms hoping to win key missile defence
contracts.
Reaction to the ABM withdrawal was muted in Moscow Thursday with senior
lawmakers and defence experts saying the six-month notice period had given
Russia time to come to terms with what the State Duma, the country's parliament,
termed a "serious political mistake."
The ABM Treaty was signed by US President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev on May 26, 1972, in Moscow.
It outlawed either nation developing a unilateral shield against
intercontinental ballistic missile attacks, and also banned testing or
deployment of all mobile antiballistic missile systems.
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