11 October 2011
U.S. Official in Russia For New Round of Missile Shield Talks
Global Security Newswire

The U.S. State Department's top arms control official on Monday departed for Russia for new bilateral discussions aimed at reaching agreement on the deployment of U.S. antimissile systems in Europe, ITAR-Tass reported (see GSN, Oct. 4).

Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher will lead the U.S. side of the talks. Her Russian counterpart is expected to be Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. The discussions are to take place in Moscow from Tuesday through Friday.

The two officials last held missile defense discussions in August in St. Petersburg. During that meeting, "the Russian side stressed the importance of ensuring legally binding guarantees that the missile defense system being created by the United States and NATO won't be aimed against Russia's strategic nuclear forces," the Russian government said.

Moscow fears that a U.S. plan to through 2020 field increasingly advanced sea- and land-based missile interceptors around Europe is secretly intended to undermine Russia's long-range nuclear weapons; Washington maintains the antimissile systems are focused on thwarting any ballistic missile attack from the Middle East. The U.S. plan is to be folded into a broader NATO effort to augment and coordinate individual member nations' missile defense programs (ITAR-Tass, Oct. 10).

The western military alliance's planned missile shield is "not targeted against anyone," Spain's foreign minister Trinidad Jimenez, said on Friday in response to Moscow's strong opposition to recently announced plans for stationing multiple U.S. ballistic missile defense ships at a Spanish naval base, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 6).

Four Aegis-equipped guided vessels are to be deployed to Spain's Naval Station Rota. The Obama administration also has concluded deals to field Standard Missile 3 interceptors in Poland and Romania and to install a long-range radar system in Turkey. Moscow has castigated these deals as being detrimental to the chances of reaching an agreement on missile defense with NATO and the United States.

"The [NATO] shield is a deterrent, it is not offensive, in order to defend ourselves," Jimenez told a Spanish public broadcaster.

"Russia was informed by Spain directly before the decision was announced because we have a special relationship," the foreign minister said. "The reaction was the one which Russia traditionally has" (Agence France-Presse/Spacedaily.com, Oct. 7).

Meanwhile, a senior military adviser to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned neighboring Turkey on Saturday that it should drastically reconsider its posture on several matters, including participation in the NATO missile defense system, or risk instability from within and without, Reuters reported (see GSN, Oct. 5).

Washington hopes to have the early missile alert system established in Kurecik, some 435 miles to the west of Iranian territory, prior to next year.

"If Turkey does not distance itself from this unconventional political behavior it will have both the Turkish people turning away from it domestically and the neighboring countries of Syria, Iraq and Iran (reassessing) their political ties," Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi said in an interview with the Mehr news service (Robin Pomeroy, Reuters, Oct. 8).