Moscow regrets US attempts to develop anti-missile defence

Moscow expresses regret over the US attempts to develop the so-called global anti-missile defence, reads a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry sent to RIA Novosti.

The statement reads that "after the political decision was taken to develop by 2004 a few strategic interceptors supported from space the implementation of the plans entered a new destabilising stage." According to the Foreign Ministry's estimate, neglecting the principles of the 1972 ABM Treaty may trigger "a new senseless arms race in the world," "the spread of weapons of mass destruction and means of its delivery, the diversion of resources from counteracting real threats of the day, primarily international terrorism." The Foreign Ministry reported that "at their recent summits the leaders of Russia and the US adopted a positive programme of further radical nuclear arms cuts, the fight against terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." "It's worth noting that the programme of joint actions gives a priority place to our cooperation in the actually necessary and real sphere of non-strategic anti-missile defence," the Foreign Ministry added. This refers to "both bilateral and multilateral cooperation within the Russia-NATO Council," the Russian Foreign Ministry specified.

Moscow expects the US "to attach priority attention to the implementation of exactly this programme co-ordinated at the highest level of strategic partnership" and will "involve its friends and partners in the programme, not in the destabilising race of strategic offensive arms, including in space."