#9
Russian deputies welcome US move on missile defence
tests
MOSCOW, Oct 26 (AFP) - Russian deputies of right and left welcomed Friday Washington's decision to call off two missile defense tests ahead of next month's US-Russian summit in order to avoid accusations it was violating the 1972 ABM treaty.
The announcement Thursday that US testing for a space-based defence shield was suspended pending Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with US President George W. Bush on November 12-15 "indicates that Russia-US relations have reached a new level," Konstantin Kosachov of the centre-left Fatherland-All Russia party said.
"For the first time for several years the US are taking decisions that do not just take account of their own interests. ... It shows they are changing the view they have of their place in the world," said Kosachov, deputy chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.
Sergei Ivanyenko, of the liberal Yabloko party, said the decision was "positive, though purely symbolic."
Noting that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that bans defence missile systems was "outdated," Ivanyenko welcomed the US declaration which showed, he said, "that the Americans are ready to negotiate and take Russia's interests into account in the area of strategic security."
He added: "We have changed vector for Russia-US relations. Our relations are on the up, even if there are no visible results. ... Attitudes are changing."
Communist deputy Igor Igoshin was more cautious, however.
"I hope these statements are serious and not propaganda. If they are serious, it shows that the world's strongest power is ready to take account of other people's interests, which was not the case before. ... The US has understood that we can only meet the new challenge together," he said.
The Kremlin was yet to comment Friday, but the foreign ministry called Thurday for "the greatest care" with regard to the ABM treaty, and congratulated opposition Democratic senators in the US who recently voted in favour of keeping it.
Political analyst Viktor Kremenyuk of Moscow's US-Canada Institute believed Washington had made the decision to suspend tests "to avoid putting Putin in a difficult position."
If the ABM treaty had been violated during or in the runup to the summit, "Putin would have been obliged to react," he said.
Noting that there was "an internal opposition in Russia, people who do not like the new tone in relations between the United States and Russia, and Putin's 'concessions', such as the recent winding up of bases in Cuba and Vietnam," Kremenyuk said Washington was "putting off the trial of strength till later, so as not to prevent the presidents' meeting, and the signing of new agreements."
Moreover "it is quite possible that the tests are not going very well and so they suspending them so as not to risk a flop," he added.
Next Article