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Russia will continue missile defense talks with U.S., but will respond to unilateral steps - Medvedev

MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax) - The situation surrounding the talks with the United States on the problem of deploying its missile shield in Europe has not reached deadlock, but Russia will retaliate if mutually acceptable solutions are not found, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said.

"I do not think the situation in this area is fully lost, but nevertheless those decisions that were made cannot make us happy, and we have to and will look at proper responses to those decisions that are being made," Medvedev said in an interview with the Chinese media ahead of his visit to China that starts on Friday.

Russia "proposed to its European partners, and the U.S. to consider creating a system of collective response to this type of threat, joint monitoring of these threats," he said. "Regrettably, we have not received a positive answer, although consultations continue," Medvedev said.

"The worst thing would be simply to close doors and windows not to hear anything. So we are certainly willing to continue talks on all the three tracks and in every form with our European and U.S. partners, including on these issues," the president said.

"We do not like very much" the idea of the third U.S. missile launch site being built in a number of European countries, Medvedev said.

"We believe it is excessive and, in our view, its implementation poses certain threats to Russia's interests, of which we spoke openly and unequivocally to our partners," the president said.

"The deployment of missile defense facilities is a source of additional tension when those nations who want to take part in creating a program of collective response to threats and challenges are being barred from them," the president said.

The situation surrounding the U.S. missile defense plans, "shows how better it would be to have common security measures and common ways of addressing the existing problems as opposed to unilateral ones," Medvedev said.

"I believe that mankind in general, including people who live in Europe, are totally ready to build multi-purpose defense mechanisms, to agree upon coordinated efforts in this area, instead of trying to build some new unilateral mechanisms that will eventually work against the existing security system," Medvedev said.