Missile Defense Watch: Putin Continues to Say NYET to Eastern Europe Missile Defense
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, right, smile as Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with an unidentified member of US delegation, unseen, at the presidential residence of Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow, Friday, Oct. 12, 2007. In a tense start to talks on a range of thorny issues, President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned U.S. officials to back off a plan to install missile defenses in eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow.
Putin Says Missile Plan Risks Relations
In a tense start to talks on a range of thorny issues, President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned U.S. officials to back off a plan to install missile defenses in eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow.
Addressing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Russian president appeared to mock the U.S. missile defense plan, which is at the center of a tangle of arms control and diplomatic disputes between the former Cold War adversaries.
“Of course we can sometime in the future decide that some anti-missile defense system should be established somewhere on the moon,” Putin said, according to an English translation. “But before we reach such arrangements we will lose the opportunity for fixing some particular arrangements between us.”
Putin also said Russia might feel compelled to pull out of a 20-year-old arms control deal unless it is expanded.
Oh well.
Russia will have to do what it wants to do and the United States and its allies have to protect themselves. This includes protection from the totalitarian Putin as well as Iran.
There will be more negotiation but Russia is not in a position to be dictating anything.
By the way, United States Missile Defense is operational.
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