March 28, 2002	Thursday	Muharram 13, 1423

MOSCOW, March 27: Russia is preparing “technical and scientific” measures to counter a planned US missile defence shield, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday.

“I want to underline that the US shield does not yet exist, and so it is difficult to speak of retaliatory measures,” Ivanov was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS during a visit to a military base.

“But this is not to say that we are not thinking about or taking technical and scientific measures,” he added.

“We are going to do everything to counter these threats when they take shape, if they ever take shape, which is to say not before 2015-2020,” Ivanov said.

The defence minister said Russia’s strategic forces were the “basis for the effectiveness of our army,” which is due to undergo a thorough modernisation over the next 15 years.

The United States has officially given notice of its intention to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, which outlaws missile defence systems, citing the threat posed by so-called “rogue states” such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

The United States has so far carried out six tests, four of which have been successful, as part of its controversial plan to deploy an anti-missile system.—AFP