MOSCOW, October 10 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia needs legal guarantees that the European missile defence systems will not be aimed at its strategic nuclear deterrence forces, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Profil weekly that came out of Monday.
At the same time, the foreign minister admitted the lack of progress in talks with the United State on the European missile shield.
“There is no progress. The only positive thing worth to be mentioned is the fact that in the course of bilateral contacts with our American colleagues and multilateral Russia-NATO contacts we have hardened to the view that our approach is the only right one, that the European missile defence shield must be shaped in somewhat another manner than the one proposed by the United States and approved by the North Atlantic Alliance,” he said.
According to Lavrov, the U.S. plans provide for the deployment, at the third and fourth phases, of defence shield elements in Europe that might pose risks to Russia’s ballistic missiles and submarine-based missiles. “They say it is not aimed against us, but on the other hand, they refuse to write it down as their liability. But we need at least legally binding guarantees that this system is not aimed against us. Now they are unwilling to give us such guarantees. It means that we shall have to look for other ways to ensure our security,” he stressed.
Russia’s Western partners are “stretching the truth” when they say that is a bid to compensate risks linked with the European missile defence system, Russia is creating conditions for arms race, the Russian foreign minister noted. Instead, the arms race, he said, “stems from the American missile defence system.”
“But shall not response to it: our development plans provide for possibilities without extra spending to secure out territory and our positions in the sphere of strategic stability,” he stressed.
Russia has “projects that may help not to be worried about its security regardless of how the situation develops further,” Lavrov added.