Obama ready to drop shield plans for Russian help on Iran

September 19th, 2009 MOSCOW - The Russian defence ministry confirmed Saturday that the country scrapped plans to deploy missiles near Poland after the US shelved its nuclear missile shield plans for Europe. Vladimir Popovkin said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station that US President Barack Obama's decision earlier this week made the deployment of Iskander tactical missiles in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad unnecessary.

September 17th, 2009 Russian FM says no new sanctions on IranMOSCOW — Russia's foreign minister says Moscow firmly opposes any new sanctions against Iran. Sergey Lavrov says new tougher sanctions would ruin hopes for solving the Iranian nuclear program through talks.

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 22nd, 2009 Reports: Iran reactor to be switched on this yearMOSCOW — Russian news agencies quote the country's nuclear agency chief as saying a Russian-built nuclear power reactor in Iran is still set to be switched on this year. State-run RIA-Novosti and ITAR-Tass quote Sergei Kiriyenko as saying plans remain for a start-up of the reactor near the Iranian city of Bushehr by the end of the year.

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.

July 4th, 2009 MOSCOW - The speaker of Russian parliament's upper house has hoped that the US could give up its plans to deploy a missile shield in Poland and Czech Repubic as President Barack Obama has shown least interest in the controversial issue. Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov told Ekho Moskvy radio Saturday that he has reasons to believe that "ultimately, this thoughtless and very dangerous step will not be made - there will be neither radar nor missiles".

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 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 4th, 2009 MADRID - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Tuesday rejected media reports that Washington had pledged to drop its Central European missile shield plans if Moscow helped resolve Iranian nuclear standoff. 'We are in correspondence, but no tradeoffs have been discussed, I assure you,' Medvedev, who is on an official visit to Spain, told a news conference in Madrid.

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 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 16th, 2009 MOSCOW - The Iranian defence minister, now visiting Moscow, is seeking advanced surface-to-air missiles that could help Iran counter air strikes, a Russian newspaper reported Tuesday. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar met with his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov on 'current and future issues of bilateral military relations', the Russian defence ministry 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.

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 ...