Medvedev denies Iran-missile shield tradeoff with US

September 24th, 2009 Israel welcomes Russian stand on Iran sanctionsJERUSALEM — A senior Israeli official welcomes steps by Russia toward endorsing additional sanctions against Iran as a way of stopping its nuclear program. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev opened the door to a firm international stand against Iran.

September 17th, 2009 Medvedev: US decision on defense 'responsible'MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev says the decision by the Obama administration to scrap plans for a missile defense system in Europe is a "responsible move." Medvedev made the comments on state TV Thursday just hours after President Barack Obama announced he was shelving the project, a major irritant between the two nations. He says he and Obama had discussed the issue of missile proliferation in their meetings earlier this year in London and Moscow.

April 28th, 2009 MOSCOW - US President Barack Obama, in his first 100 days in office, has demonstrated flexibility in foreign policy and a willingness to use dialogue rather than confrontation, a senior Russian senator said Tuesday. Mikhail Margelov, the head of the Russian Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, said the new US administration was not rushing to integrate the ex-Soviet states of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO or to deploy its controversial missile defence shield in Central Europe.

April 1st, 2009 LONDON - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his US counterpart Barack Obama Wednesday admitted that there were still differences between the two nations over the issue of US-proposed missile shield in Central Europe. 'While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defence assets in Europe, we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defence,' the two leaders said in a joint statement after their meeting in London.

March 28th, 2009 MOSCOW - US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev would issue joint statements on bilateral relations and strategic arms reduction at their upcoming meeting in London, the Russian president's aide said Saturday. 'We will have two presidential statements - on Russian-US relations generally, but also on START.

March 20th, 2009 MOSCOW - There is scope for Russia and the US to reach an agreement on missile defence, the Russian foreign ministry said Thursday. 'In theory, we have every opportunity to agree on the missile defence issue,' Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.

March 7th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India Friday successfully tested an indigenous interceptor missile that destroyed an incoming 'enemy' ballistic missile at an altitude of 80 km, an official said. During the test, an 'enemy' missile which was a modified version of the Dhanush surface-to-surface missile was fired from a naval ship in the Bay of Bengal to simulate the terminal phase of the flight of a ballistic missile with a range of 1,500 km.

March 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama said Tuesday preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon would diminish the need for the US to base a missile-defence system in Eastern Europe. Obama commented on the planned deployment after The New York Times reported that he sent a secret letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev conveying his position.

March 4th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russia Tuesday said it would drop its plans of placing Iskander missiles on Europe's doorstep if the US abandoned its plans of deploying missile defence systems in Central Europe. 'If the deployment (of US missile defence elements) is suspended, we will not start the retaliatory measures we planned,' Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said.

March 3rd, 2009 MOSCOW - US President Barack Obama has reportedly proposed to Russia to help resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis in exchange for Washington abandoning its missile shield plans for Europe, a media report said Monday. Obama made the proposal in a letter to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, the Kommersant newspaper reported, citing unnamed White House sources.

March 2nd, 2009 MOSCOW - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday he hoped to discuss US plans to deploy a missile shield system in Central Europe with his American counterpart Barack Obama when they will meet in April during the G20 summit in London. In an interview with the Spanish media, Medvedev said he hoped the new US administration would display a more creative approach to this issue than the previous George Bush administration.

February 15th, 2009 TEHRAN - Washington has indicated that it is willing to slow plans to deploy a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe if Moscow agreed to join the West to pressure Iran to stop its nuclear programme, a media report said. Senior Russian officials have insisted that contrary to US claims there is no evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons programme.

February 6th, 2009 MUNICH - The prospective US missile defence shield in Central Europe targets Russia's nuclear deterrent, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has said. Speaking at the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy Friday, he also said Russia is proposing a ban on the placement of strategic offensive weapons outside national borders in a new Russia-US arms reduction agreement.

February 6th, 2009 MUNICH - The US will continue to work on a planned missile defence system in central Europe, but it will consult Russia, Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday. 'We will continue to develop missile defences to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven to work and cost effective,' Biden said at the 45th Munich Security Conference, adding: 'We will do so in consultation with our NATO allies and Russia.' Russia has consistently opposed the missile shield as a threat to its national security and officials have repeatedly expressed the hope that President Barack Obama would not follow through with his predecessor's missile defence plans.

January 28th, 2009 BRUSSELS - NATO has said that a Russian decision, if confirmed, to halt plans to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad would be a positive step. 'If the decision has been taken ...