US, Russia admit differences over missile shield

September 17th, 2009 NATO chief hails missile defense "positive step"BRUSSELS — NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says a U.S. decision to shelve plans for a missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland "is a positive step." Fogh Rasmussen says he had talks with the U.S.

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.

June 23rd, 2009 US: missile spat with Russia will be worked outWASHINGTON — A State Department official expressed confidence Tuesday that Russian objections to any U.S. missile defense system in eastern Europe will not impede arms reduction talks.

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 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 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI -India will Friday test launch its indigenous interceptor missile that will destroy an incoming ballistic 'enemy' missile at an altitude of 80 km and will provide defence against Pakistani and Chinese missiles, an official said. 'All the preparations have been made and all the scientists are working to make the test successful,' a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) official 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 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 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.