WASHINGTON (Islmaweb & Agencies) - U.S. and Russian defense officials on Tuesday discussed prospects for cooperation on missile defense coupled with deep nuclear arms cuts, and the Pentagon clamped a lid of secrecy on the talks.
The opening of a two-day Defense Department meeting kicked off a Bush administration effort to end Russian opposition to controversial U.S. plans for a limited defense against missiles fired by so-called ``rogue states''.
Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, would say only that a senior U.S. team headed by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith was presenting ideas on a new security relationship to a visiting 10-member delegation headed by Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky.
BUSH, PUTIN WANT NUCLEAR CUTS
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed last month in Genoa, Italy, to link American planning for missile defense with large cuts that the Kremlin wants in both nations' massive nuclear arsenals.
U.S. officials also have hinted that Washington might provide technology and help to Moscow in the area of missile defense, as well as cooperation in other military areas.
While officials declined to discuss details of the first of a series of talks in both countries, U.S. experts were expected to provide the Russians with details of research and testing in areas ranging from ``hit-to-kill'' projectiles to destroy missiles in flight, to an airborne laser weapon that could burn up missiles shortly after they are fired.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who will meet on missile defense and closer security ties with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in Moscow next week, chatted briefly with the Russian delegation at lunch but was not taking part in the talks.
In Italy, Bush and Putin agreed for the first time to link discussions on missile defense with mutual deep cuts in nuclear arsenals, as part of efforts to build a new security relationship. (Read photo caption below)
Moscow sees the ABM treaty as the keystone of strategic stability and says its abrogation by Washington could shatter 30 other arms control accords built around the pact. To date, Russia has refused, at least publicly, to contemplate rewriting or abandoning the accord.
But Putin's agreement to link talks on missile defense to cuts in nuclear stockpiles has fueled speculation Russia is now ready to accept a U.S. missile shield in return for a mutual cut of nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads.
Under the planned START-2 strategic arms reduction treaty, the two sides would go down to about 3,500 warheads each. But economically strapped Moscow cannot afford to maintain such an arsenal and the Pentagon is currently assessing whether it is prepared to go lower.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Reports from Russia say a senior army figure has accepted the principle of changing the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty - a move which could clear the way for the US to adopt its "son of star wars" defence programme.