Missile defence deal with US possible, says Russia

September 17th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday that Russia valued US President Barack Obama's decision to scrap plans for a missile shield in Central Europe. Obama announced earlier Thursday that Washington was dropping its previous plans to deploy elements of a missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland because the Iran threat is perceived in a different way.

July 14th, 2009 Reports: Russia tests 2nd sub-launched missileMOSCOW — News agencies say Russia has successfully tested its second submarine-launched ballistic missile in as many days. RIA-Novosti and Interfax quote the head of Russia's joint chief of staff as saying a Sineva-type missile was fired Tuesday from the submarine Bryansk near the White Sea.

July 6th, 2009 MOSCOW - US President Barack Obama has said that the proposed deployment of a missile shield in Europe was intended to counter Iran and Russia should not worry about it. In an interview with Novaya Gazeta newspaper Monday, Obama said that Washington was seeking to create a missile shield in Europe to protect the US and Europe from Iranian ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.

June 26th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russia and the US will sign a military cooperation deal during President Barack Obama's visit to Moscow in early July, Russia's top military general said Friday. "We discussed a number of very serious and important matters related both to international and regional security.

May 22nd, 2009 WARSAW - Poland will deploy a US missile unit in the country later this year as part of a pact with Washington, Deputy Defence Minister Stanislaw Komorowski said Thursday. Russia has strongly opposed the move.

April 22nd, 2009 MOSCOW - The US is unlikely to revise its missile defence plans and there are no reasons for a drastic reduction in offensive strategic arms, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday. 'The US side has not revised its plans.

April 16th, 2009 MOSCOW - There are no obstacles to the delivery of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Tehran, Iran's deputy foreign minister has said. 'There are no problems with this (S-300) contract,' Mehdi Safari said Wednesday at the end of his visit to Moscow.

April 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Close on the heels of a $2 billion missile deal with the Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI), India has signed yet another deal with an Israeli defence company to build a munition factory in Bihar forgoing the mandatory offset clause, a senior official said. The Rs.12 billion/$240 million deal with the Israel Military Industries Ltd.

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 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 7th, 2009 BRUSSELS - Russia could join a controversial US plan to deploy missile-defence systems in Europe which has provoked outrage in Moscow, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday just hours before a meeting with her Russian counterpart. 'We believe that Russia and the US have the opportunity to cooperate on missile defence - on joint research, joint development, and even eventually, assuming we can reach such an agreement, joint deployment,' Clinton said after talks with European Union (EU) officials in Brussels.

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.

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 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 27th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russia has decided to suspend its plan to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad as the new US administration has indicated it would not speed up its missile shield plans in Europe, Interfax news agency reported Wednesday. 'These plans have been suspended because the new US administration is not pushing ahead with the plans to deploy the third phase of the US missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic,' a Russian General Staff official was quoted as saying.