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Putin To Meet U.S. Defense Secretary Over U.S. Missile Systems in Europe Mos
News U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is to meet with Russian President Putin, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and other senior officials to discuss a new set of U.S. proposals designed to soften Russian objections, the Associated Press reports Monday. The proposals, presented last week in Moscow and at NATO headquarters in Belgium, include sharing data collected by U.S. sensors to provide early warning of ballistic missile launches, cooperation on missile defense research, and joint testing of the building blocks of an anti-missile system, according to an administration official traveling with Gates. The Bush administration is hoping that a series of high-level meetings this week will yield the first sign of a crack in Russia’s opposition to a top-priority U.S. defense project: the building of anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Later this week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to attend a NATO meeting in Norway that is scheduled to include a session with Russian officials on the missile defense controversy and other issues. The administration is consulting with Poland on hosting a U.S. base with 10 missile interceptors, and is talking to the Czech government about hosting a radar system used to track hostile missiles in flight. Russia has long objected to a U.S. military presence on its periphery; Poland and the Czech Republic were part of the old Warsaw Pact that faced off against U.S.-led NATO during the Cold War. The Bush administration sees the extension of its existing missile defense system to Europe as crucial. “Whether Russia cooperates with us or not is really up to Russia. That’s a decision that they have to make,” one of the officials said. “Russia doesn’t get a veto over what we do” in missile defense. ---------------------------------------------------
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