U.S. - Russia Differences Remain On Missile Shield

Despite an intensive charm offensive by US president George Bush, Moscow and Washington remain divided over whether to place parts of a US anti-missile shield in Central Europe, with Russian president Vladimir Putin tabling new proposals to divert such plans. Speaking at the Bush family summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine on Tuesday (2 July), Mr. Putin reiterated his surprise offer from last month to build a joint site in the Russia-rented station Gabala in Azerbaijan. He also suggested using the newly-built radar with an early warning system in the south of Russia and setting up two information exchange centers - one in Moscow, the second one in Brussels. ‘In this case, there would be no need to place any more facilities in Europe - I mean, these facilities in the Czech Republic and the missile base in Poland’, said Mr. Putin, the first world leader to be invited to Kennebunkport, the Maine summer retreat of George Bush Senior. According to the Kremlin, such cooperation ‘would result in raising to an entirely new level the quality of cooperation between Russia and the United States...and lead to a gradual development of strategic partnership in the area of security’. But US president George W. Bush made it clear that the proposal would not halt the ongoing US negotiations with Prague and Warsaw. ‘I think that the Czech Republic and Poland need to be an integral part of the system’, the White House chief said.