November 13, 2008	Thursday	Ziqa'ad 14, 1429

MOSCOW, Nov 12: The Kremlin has rejected a second set of US proposals offered to assuage increasingly strident Russian criticism of plans for an American missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, news agencies reported on Wednesday.

The Bush administration says the system would protect Europe from attacks by Iranian long-range missiles. Moscow has angrily dismissed those assertions, saying the system could eliminate Russia’s nuclear deterrent or spy on its military installations.In a major speech just hours after Barack Obama won the US presidential vote, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged to base short-range Iskander missiles in the Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad on the border with Poland if the US goes forward with its plans.

The Bush administration later sent Moscow a new set of proposals. Previous US proposals involved, among other things, offers to allow Russia to send observers to monitor the missile defence sites. Russian and US officials have not publicly disclosed the contents of the latest proposals.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this weekend after meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the latest proposals were insufficient. On Wednesday, an unnamed Kremlin official told Russian news agencies that Moscow was prepared to work with Washington on questions of European security. But the official accused the Bush administration of trying to limit the incoming Obama administration’s choices on the issue.

“The Americans have presented us with several proposals. These proposals are inadequate, they have nothing new in them,” the official said.

The Kremlin did not comment on the report.

In Brussels, the Russian ambassador to the European Union said Medvedev’s speech had been intended as a signal to the Obama administration.

“’Russia has been warning the international community for many months that we would have to react,” Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov told reporters ahead of an EU-Russia summit on Friday in Nice, France. “I don’t want to prejudge any decision that President-elect Obama will be taking, but I believe it’s best for him to know what to expect from Russia in case this decision is taken.”

An American official said separately that the US and Russia will begin talks on Thursday on finding a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires at the end of next year.

The official said the talks will take place in the US and Russian diplomatic missions in Geneva and last until Nov 21.

The 1991 START treaty significantly cut US and Russian nuclear arsenals.

The official spoke on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to be quoted by name.

The US Embassy in Moscow said the US State Department’s third-ranked official, William Burns, met with Lavrov and Kremlin foreign policy aide Sergei Prikhodko on Wednesday for discussions on various subjects, including talks on missile defence that would take place next month. No further details were released.—AP