U.S. And Russia Remain Far Apart On Missile Defense

Friday, October 12th 2007, 10:41 am

By: News On 6

MOSCOW (AP) _ High-level talks Friday between the United States and Russia failed to bridge major differences over U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe and a range of strategic arms issues.

After a series of tense meetings that began with a blunt rebuff from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared in talks with their counterparts not to have turned around Moscow's opposition to such a system.

Rice and Gates brought several new detailed proposals to the table meant to ease Russian concerns that the missile defense system would be aimed at Moscow, but the pair was unable to convince Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

``We see two serious problems with these proposals,'' Lavrov told reporters at a four-way news conference. He said the two sides still disagree about the nature of the missile threat to Europe and that the Bush administration still refuses to freeze its deployment plans while the issue is discussed.

``There is no agreement on this,'' Lavrov said, adding that that while the initial U.S. plan to place elements of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic were small, they could grow to become a threat to Russia's deterrent force. ``There is a potential threat for us here.''

Serdyukov agreed.

``The principal thing to which we did not agree today is the deployment of anti-missile elements which have an anti-Russian character and which are to be placed in Europe,'' he said.

Rice said the ideas that she and Gates presented are ``conceptual at this point'' and would be handed to experts to consider further. The two sides plan to meet again in Washington in about six months, she said.

Gates said that one idea would be to have Russian personnel stationed at each missile defense site to improve coordination and openness with Moscow.