Medvedev: Russia prepared to consider joining missile shield

Copenhagen - Russia is prepared to consider to take part in an international missile defense shield, President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Danish television ahead of a state visit Tuesday to the Scandinavian country.

"If it is a serious proposal, we can," Medvedev said in the interview aired Monday evening on Danish public broadcaster DR. The Russian leader is expected in Denmark later Tuesday after a two-day state visit to Norway.

"We have long advocated that a system of global security or missile defense should protect not only one country or group of countries, but rather be in the interests of all responsible members of the international community," he added.

Last week, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen suggested that the defense alliance and Russia should cooperate on creating a missile defense shield that would cover Europe and Russia.

Medvedev said that a missile defense shield could disturb "the existing balance between the major nuclear powers, especially between Russia and the United States."

"But if this system has a global dimension, if it is designed to mitigate threats from countries ... who violate international law in some way, who are independently developing, for example, nuclear weapons programs, or otherwise not complying with principles required for amicable international interaction, those which are currently accepted worldwide, then in this case, of course such a system of protection could be established," he said.

Rasmussen told DR that Medvedev's remarks "could open a new era in the defense cooperation between NATO, the US Russia."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/320746,medvedev-russia-prepared-to-consider-joining-missile-shield.html.