"Mutual Destruction" In U.S. Missile Deployment

Published on Friday, April 27, 2007
Source: Agence France Presse
Courtesy Of: CommonDreams

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned that US plans to deploy an anti-missile system in eastern Europe sharply increase the danger of mutual destruction.

...Te Kremlin leader accused the United States of misrepresenting the true aim of the limited missile shield, which is to be based in NATO members Czech Republic and Poland.

“The threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times,” Putin said after a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus in Moscow, Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies reported.

He scorned Washington’s claim that the role of the US interceptor missiles would be to shoot down missiles from countries such as Iran or North Korea, rather than from Russia.

“Neither terrorists, whom they are preparing to defend against, nor Iran, nor North Korea have such a system,” Putin said. “To talk of terrorists is simply hilarious. They use other methods.”

...On Thursday, Putin stunned Western capitals when he announced suspension of Moscow’s participation in the Soviet-era Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which imposes strict limits on troop deployments across the continent.

Putin said this was in response to the planned US missile shield.

...The Pentagon insists the anti-missile system would defend against one-off threats and could have no effect against Russia’s enormous nuclear missile arsenal.

But Putin also dismissed this Friday, saying the range of the system would extend to the Ural mountains, covering the entire European section of Russia.

“These systems will control Russian territory up to the Urals if we do not take counter measures — and we will.”

...Putin compared the US anti-missile deployment to the stationing of Pershing II ballistic nuclear missiles in West Germany in the 1980s, a step that caused heated debate within NATO.

“The threat is absolutely the same,” Putin said. “This new element fundamentally changes the European security system.”

Copyright © 2007 AFP