Washington, October 01: The United States President Barack Obama announced the need to work with Russia on a new generation missile shield, following his abandonment of an earlier US system that Moscow opposed, in Eastern Europe.
The tension in the International community triggered with the Iran’s testing of short- and medium- range missiles and the comments from the US’ side came subsequent to guarantees demanded by Russia on the security issue in the run up to the Iran’s missile programmes.
Obama after talks with NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen pronounced the importance of reaching out to Russia to maintain better relations with the country, which got strained following the war involving Georgia and Abkhazia.
“It is important for us to reach out to Russia and explore ways in which the missile defence configurations that we envision could potentially lead to further collaboration.”
“We want to improve generally not only US-Russian relations, but also NATO-Russian relations, while making absolutely clear that our commitments to all of our allies in NATO is sacrosanct,” Obama said.
Earlier, Russia’s NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin told in Moscow that the Kremlin wanted guarantees the new US system “only concerns short-and long-range missiles.”
“If this system is of a mobile nature, where are the guarantees… that this system will not float up to us, to our northern seas or the Baltic?”
The new plan announced by Obama envisions a mobile system of sea-based interceptors that would protect against short- and medium-range missiles from Iran, instead of Tehran’s as yet to be developed long-range arsenal.
—Agencies