A Russian delegation met with senior Pentagon officials in Washington on Tuesday for two days of talks on a US proposal for a new strategic framework that would combine missile defense with reductions in nuclear weapons and shelve the 1972 ABM treaty.
The Pentagon meeting, which will set the stage for a visit to Moscow next week by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is the first detailed exchange of information on the US proposal, US defense officials said.
In Moscow, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia will defend its national interests in the talks.
"There are many questions to which the Americans have not given us answers," Ivanov said after meeting German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping.
Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, met the eight-member Russian delegation led by Colonel General Yury Baluyevsky on the steps to the Pentagon and quickly ushered them inside for the first of two full days of talks.
Rumsfeld told reporters Friday the Russians would be given a set of detailed briefings on what Washington has in mind and ways the two countries could cooperate. The US side also had questions for the Russians, he said.
Washington is pressing for an arrangement with Moscow that would allow it to set aside the ABM treaty and quickly launch an ambitious program to develop and test a wide array of missile defense systems that are currently banned under the treaty.
Russia opposes changes to the ABM treaty, which it regards as the cornerstone of existing nuclear arms control regimes, but agreed to the talks after US President George W. Bush said in Genoa last month that missile defenses and nuclear arms cuts should go hand in hand.
The Russian president has called for cuts in US and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads per side, below even proposed START II levels. That would help preserve a US-Russian nuclear balance at a time when Moscow can ill afford to maintain an existing arsenal of more than 6,000 warheads per side.
Bush also has called for deeper nuclear cuts but has not said how deep. Rumsfeld said Friday the US side will be discussing nuclear cuts with the Russians but not the "endpoints" to which it is prepared to go.
The United States also has dangled the prospect of technology cooperation with the Russians.
Few details have been made public, but the New York Times reported in May that Washington was prepared to offer to buy Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles for missile defense systems that could be used to protect Europe and Russia against missile attack.
Other areas of possible cooperation include helping Russia rebuild decrepit air defense radars, sharing early warning data and joint missile defense exercises, US officials say.
Rumsfeld and others have said political and economic cooperation with Russia also would be part of the package.
Similar offers of cooperation have been rebuffed in the past by Moscow, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has adopted a softer tone on missile defense since his first summit with Bush in Slovenia in June.
(Chinadaily.com.cn 08/08/2001)
