October 3, 2006 :: Interfax :: News
Russia today warned Poland against hosting a U.S. or NATO missile defense site on its territory, reports
Interfax. Speaking before the start of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s official visit to Poland, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin was quoted as saying, “We regard negatively U.S. plans to deploy anti-missile defense system in Europe, and we believe that with the possible deployment of the European NATO missile defense system it would have a negative impact on strategic stability, regional security and intergovernmental relations.” Kamynin added that “a new situation like this one will objectively require us to take appropriate measures because we cannot rely in such matters solely on statements that the missile defense systems of the U.S. and NATO in Europe ‘are not aimed’ against Russia.” Kamynin did not say what measures Russia might take in response, but the military chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, warned in a Polish newspaper last month that “deploying the large-scale U.S. anti-missile shield threatens to spark a new arms race.” U.S. officials have said that the site would be designed to defend Europe against intercontinental-range ballistic missiles launched by rogue states such as Iran or North Korea.
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