The United States and Russia failed to agree on a plan to resolve a long-running dispute over U.S. plans to build the European Missile Defense (EMD) system against missiles launched from Middle Eastern nations such as Iran, according to news reports.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov concluded weekend talks in Geneva, the two top diplomats agreed to continue discussions on missile defense and other issues.
Russia has threatened to use Iskander missiles to annihilate the EMD system if the United States builds it. The system would include a radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in ground silos in Poland. While the United States sees this as perfectly sited to intercept Iranian missiles tipped with nuclear weapons that target Europe or American cities, Russia claims the American interceptors would target its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). But U.S. leaders say this would be a physical impossibility.
U.S. interest in building the EMD was sharpened when Iran refused to cease producing nuclear materials in thousands of centrifuges, fissile matter that could be further refined to build atomic bombs, and U.S. concern rose again when Iran launched a satellite that 30 minutes later was over the United States, showing that Tehran possesses technology required to build an ICBM.
Just a week earlier, U.S. intelligence had assumed that Iran would require two to three years of work to produce a rocket able to reach Europe and Russia, much less the United States.
In the Clinton-Lavrov talks, the two diplomats failed to reach agreement on how Russia might help the United States press Iran to abandon its nuclear and missile development programs. President Obama was said to have suggested the United States might back away from its plan to build the EMD if Russia would agree to help pressure Iran to abandon those programs, a report that Obama later termed untrue. (Please see story in this issue.)
Separately, Polish President Lech Kaczynski urged the United States to honor its word to his country and deploy the EMD, according to an AP report.
If the United States dumps the EMD program, that would be a negative and unwelcome development, he indicated in a TV interview.
He last year signed an agreement with then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to base the interceptors in Poland.
On other issues, Clinton and Lavrov were more upbeat about chances that Washington and Moscow will be able to agree by the end of the year on a treaty for further reducing their nuclear armories, and for other arms limitation provisions.
Lavrov also acknowledged he and Clinton continue to differ over Russian sales of missiles to Iran that then are shipped to Hamas (Gaza Strip) and Hezbollah (Southern Lebanaon) terrorists who fire the weapons into Israel.
However, Larvov did indicate that any weapons that Moscow supplies to nations shouldn’t be sent on to other nations where they cause problems.