Russia Offers Alternatives To Missile Shield

SPACEWAR

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov speaks during the 839th plenary session of the Conference on Disarmament at the Un building in Geneva, Switzerland, 01 February, 2001. Igor Ivanov is on a one day visit to Switzerland. AFP PHOTO EPA-KEYSTONE/Laurent Gillieron

Geneva (Interfax) Feb 1, 2001
Russia feels the need for the quick resumption of an energetic and efficient dialogue with the new American administration about the preservation and development of the 1972 ABM Treaty.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov plans to reaffirm this idea at a session of the disarmament conference in Geneva, diplomats have told Interfax.

The minister, now in Switzerland on a working visit, will address the conference delegates at about 1:00 p.m. Moscow time on Thursday.

He will propose "a set of constructive political and diplomatic measures as an alternative to the national missile defense system of the United States," the sources said.

One of them is the opening of a Russian-American center in Moscow to exchange information about missile launches and a global system to control the non-proliferation of missiles and missile technologies, they said.

The minister will also suggest "a broad, international cooperation in missile defense in the theater of operations [a non-strategic missile defense system], which [the cooperation] has been set into motion by a number of accords" reached by Moscow and Washington over the past three years, the diplomats said.

The alternative measures of Moscow are aimed to ease "concerns of the United States and other parties about the so-called new missile threats, while preserving the ABM Treaty," they added.

Meanwhile, a group of Russian military specialists flew to the U.S. on Wednesday in order to take part in joint Russian-U.S. headquarters training exercises in non-strategic anti-ballistic missile defense.

Some 30 Russian officers will take part in the exercises to be held at a U.S. Army research and testing center in Colorado Springs, the Russian Defense Ministry has told Interfax.

The training exercises, which will include computer simulations, will be designed to train "coordinated actions by headquarters of tactical units of a non-strategic ABM system during joint action for neutralizing non-strategic ballistic missile attacks."

The upcoming training exercises will be held within the framework of the third phase of interaction on non-strategic ABM systems, the Defense Ministry said. The first phase took place in 1996 and the second in 1998.

"The third phase will be conducted on the basis of a joint statement concerning "The initiative on cooperation in the sphere of stability" issued by the U.S. and Russian presidents at the Millenium Summit in New York last September," the Ministry said.

The Russian team is scheduled to return to Moscow on February 12.

SPACEWAR

China Slams US Missile Plans

Beijing (AFP) Feb. 6, 2001
China said Tuesday it was "seriously concerned" about US plans to develop an anti-missile defense system, but expressed hopes that high-level contacts with the new US administration will go on.

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