#1
Putin ready to cooperate with US on missile defense

MOSCOW, Jan 23 (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin is willing to cooperate with the United States in the joint construction of a missile defense shield, a top scientist who met the Russian leader Thursday told news agencies. Roald Sagdeyev, a senior member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Putin told him in the Kremlin that he did not rule out "the possibility of the joint development of a missile defense system" with the United States.

His comments come amid strong hints from Washington that it is studying the potential use of Russian missile technology in its proposed missile defense system, whose first elements will become operational by 2004.

However the Russian scientist said Putin had qualified his remarks by saying that Russia "has its own views of how this (joint) work should go ahead."

"All the work has to be centralized and conducted from a single center, so that we will not lose (rights) to our technology," Sagdeyev quoted Putin as saying.

Russia has powerful mid-range interceptor missiles which it has proposed incorporating into a European defense shield, and further suggested it might take part in the development of a broader shield together with the United States.

Last week, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov aired plans to develop a global missile defense shield along the lines of controversial US proposals.

US President George W. Bush in December announced plans to deploy a limited missile shield by 2004 that would include 10 ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greeley in Alaska.

Such a system is far too small to test Russia's massive nuclear stockpile but Moscow fears Washington would expand the shield over the coming years and -- with Russia too poor to replenish its ageing missile arsenal -- could one day nullify its nuclear threat.

BACK TO THE TOP    #241 CONTENTS    NEXT ARTICLE