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Russia still unconvinced on NMD
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RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Saturday said his country remained unconvinced by US arguments in favour of deploying a national missile defence (NMD) shield, but expressed confidence that the upcoming US-Russian summit would be a boon to bilateral relations.
"The offered reasoning (on NMD) fails to convince us, and the majority of the world nations, that potential threats require the dismantling of the entire body of the agreements on disarmament and the jeopardizing of nonproliferation regimes," Ivanov told reporters in Washington.
Nonetheless, he expressed optimism regarding the first summit between US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, scheduled for June 16 in Slovenia.
"We are convinced the forthcoming summit will give a positive momentum to the Russian-American dialogue on a wide range of international issues and the issues of our bilateral relations," Ivanov said.
During his short visit in Washington, Ivanov -- who met with Bush, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell -- firmly presented Russia's position that the United States was not entitled unilaterally to establish a national missile defence system.
Moscow sees the missile defence system as a clear violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which has underpinned nuclear arms reduction efforts for three decades.
Washington has made clear that it views the treaty as a relic of the Cold War, when the former Soviet Union and the United States were locked in an arms race. The Russians, however, see the missile shield as the trigger for a new nuclear arms race. (SD-Agencies)
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