April 24, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 06, 1428

MOSCOW, April 23: Washington's plan to build a missile defence shield in Europe threatens global security, Russia's defence minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, told US Defence Secretary Robert Gates at a meeting in Moscow on Monday.

Serdyukov spoke after meeting Gates, who flew to the Russian capital in hopes of defusing opposition to the controversial US project.

“We believe the strategic missile defence system is a seriously destabilising factor that can have a significant influence on regional and global security,” Serdyukov said, speaking through an official interpreter.

Gates, also scheduled to meet President Vladimir Putin, put a positive spin on strained Russian-US relations, telling Serdyukov: “I look forward to working with you... to see how we can more positively develop our military-to-military relationship.”

However, there was little sign of progress in softening Moscow's opposition to the missile defence plan.

The Pentagon wants to station 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a targeting radar in the Czech Republic, countries that lie close to Russian territory and during the Cold War were under Moscow's control.

Russia, increasingly emboldened by new oil wealth, fiercely opposes the plans, regarding them as encroaching into Moscow's traditional sphere of influence.

The missile defence issue has threatened to divide Washington's traditional allies.

Germany has said Washington must work to ease Russian concerns, while the Czech Republic and Poland have asserted that Moscow has no right to interfere.

Ahead of Gates's visit, the United States has assembled a package of incentives aimed at allaying Russian concerns, said officials travelling with the defence secretary.

These incentives, already presented last week, include an offer to share missile warning data and cooperate in developing and testing missile defence technology with the Russians.

“We outlined a series of areas where we might be able to cooperate with Russia and this involves both sharing of information and potentially of technology,” said a senior administration official.

“It includes things like sharing sensor data for early warning, common research and development, testing of various components of systems,” said the official, briefing reporters aboard his plane.

The United States insists that existing defences need to be extended to protect against attack from “rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea and says its missile shield plans are not directed against Russia.

But Russia has maintained its opposition and First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said last week that Russia was not interested in cooperating on the US plans.

Officials travelling with Gates said that while they believed cooperation on missile defence was in both countries' interest, Russia would not have a veto on the issue.

On Monday Russia's Vedomosti business daily stressed that Moscow was not interested in cooperation on the plans.

What Moscow really wants is to begin negotiating new agreements on limiting strategic weapons, including a renewal of the START 1 treaty that entered into force in 1994 and has a 15-year duration.

“Discussions on this theme are needed by Russia due to the increasing lag of its strategic forces behind America's and

because this is the only

international problem where Moscow can look like an equal partner of Washington,” Vedomosti said, quoting a Russian analyst.

After his meetings, Gates will travel to Warsaw to confer with Polish leaders and also stop in Berlin to touch base with German leaders.—AFP