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Russia to close GPS stations if stalemate not broken on GLONASS

This is the latest spat in a series of events pitching Russia and the United States against each other in putting global positioning systems into service

MOSCOW, June 11. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia has halted negotiations with the United States on ground facilities for Russia's GLONASS satellite navigation system on the American soil.

This is the latest spat in a series of events pitching Russia and the United States against each other in putting global positioning systems into service.

“We have made our position clear. We warned the United States about measures we were going to take, and we actually did take them," Russian Federal Space Agency chief Oleg Ostapenko told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday. "Now we will see what they do in response.”

Reflecting poor progress on siting ground locations in the US, Russia has responded with moves to stop a US global positioning GPS system being used on the Russian soil. This announced closure of 11 stations in Kaluga, Sverdlovsk, Krasnoyarsk and Yakutsk regions and in the cities of Irkutsk, Magadan, Yuzhni Sakhalin and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski. On June 1,  Russia already took measures to prevent these stations from being used for military purposes.

Operations will cease there from September if the coming three summer months fail to secure successful negotiations between Russia and the United States, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has warned.