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MAFRA (Portugal), Oct 26: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday likened a dispute with Washington over defence to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 but said the same Cold War tensions could not be repeated.
“Let me remind you what happened in the same situation in the 1960s. When the Soviet Union deployed missiles in Cuba, it led to the Caribbean crisis,” Putin said, using the Russian term for the Cuban missile crisis.
“Thank God, there is no Caribbean crisis now, mainly because Russia’s relations with the European Union and the United States have changed a lot” since the Cold War, he added.But he said that Washington was creating “threats” near Russia’s borders.
Putin was speaking at a press conference after meeting EU leaders at a summit in a former royal residence in the Portuguese town of Mafra, some 40 kilometres from Lisbon.
The United States has outlined plans to locate interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic in order to guard against possible missile attacks from Iran.
Moscow has reacted angrily to the plans, saying the missile defence system is actually aimed at Russia.
US and Russian officials are discussing possible compromises, including allowing Russia access to the installations, but Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Thursday they were not convinced by the US concessions.
US REJECTS COMPARISON: The White House on Friday rejected Putin’s comparison between Moscow’s dispute with Washington over defence to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
“I think that the historical comparison does not exactly work,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.
“The purpose of the missile defence system in Europe is to defend against a missile that would attack one of our European allies and Russia,” she added.
State Department Sean McCormack also rejected the comparison saying there were “some very clear historical differences between our plans to deploy a defensive missile system designed to protect against launch of missiles from rogue states such as Iran and the offensive nuclear-tipped capability of the missiles that were being installed in Cuba back in the 1960s that were targeting the United States.” The discovery in October 1962 that Moscow was secretly building nuclear missile launchpads in Cuba pushed the world close to nuclear war in a terrifying 13-day brinkmanship between Russia and the United States.The United States has outlined plans to locate interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic in order to guard against possible missile attacks from Iran. Moscow has reacted angrily to the plans, saying the missile defense system is actually aimed at Russia.
Perino added she was convinced Putin was willing to cooperate to resolve the dispute.
—AFP
