Demonstrators in the center of Prague shout slogans opposing

plans to build part of a U.S. missile defense shield in the Czech

Republic, July 8.

 

 

Kommersant, Russia

U.S. Offer to Russia on Missile Defense, 'Knowingly Designed to Be Unacceptable'

 

"They [the initiatives] have been worded is such a way as to enable the Americans to unilaterally abandon them at anytime. Besides, these proposals have been punctuated by conditions that are knowingly designed to be unacceptable to us."

 

-- Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky, chief of the foreign affairs at the Russian Defense Ministry

July 8, 2008

Russia - Kommersant - Original Article (Russian and English)

The U.S. initiatives meant to ease Russia’s concerns about the deployment in the Czech Republic and Poland of a U.S. missile defense shield are quite "amorphous and unspecific," said Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky, chief of the foreign affairs at the Russian Federation Defense Ministry.

 

“They [the initiatives] have been worded is such a way as to enable the Americans to unilaterally abandon them at anytime. Besides, these proposals have been punctuated by conditions that are knowingly designed to be unacceptable to us,” Buzhinsky said in the interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper [In Russian ].

 

 

The adequacy of Russia's right to a reciprocal response remains unresolved, Buzhinsky explained. “For example, why does the document proposed by the Americans say nothing about what steps Russia would be entitled to make should the U.S. decide to deploy another missile defense position in Europe, increase the number of missiles interceptors or arm them with multiple-interceptor stages? In the event, it would be naive to think that we would abandon a second strike capability."

 

Another example of the lack U.S. transparency are the conditions that the U.S. has put forward to allow access by Russian inspectors to missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.

 

“Washington advises us to tackle this issue with … the Poles and the Czechs, and at the same time to give them access to similar facilities in Russia. This, if I might say so, takes a reasonable proposal and renders it useless,” the General said.

 

Nevertheless, Buzhinsky General says Russia hasn’t abandoned dialogue.  

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

 

“We stand by the need of international monitoring of all missile tests. The first step on this path could be a regional system for monitoring missile launches from the Near and Middle East. Let me remind you that Russia has proposed the use data from its radar stations in Gabala and Armavir to support such an initiative."

 

People in Prague protest the U.S.-Czech Republic agreement on

stationing elements of an anti-missile shield in that nation. Some

of the signs read, 'We are not sheep' and 'No radar.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US July 8, 7:45pm]