Russians not bothered by ABM decision
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- The Bush Administration plans to announce it will withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, but senior Russian officials said the decision would not damage relations between the two countries.
Secretary of State Colin Powell informally advised his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov of President Bush's plans during talks in Moscow Sunday, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported Tuesday. Unilateral abrogation of the treaty requires a six months advance notice to the other side, according to the treaty text.
President Bush revealed that he planned to pull out of the historic agreement shortly after his election last year so the U.S. could continue developing a missile defense system. The ABM treaty prohibits building new missile systems.
Last weekend, a test of the system was called successful by Pentagon officials.
"The President has said it's time to move beyond the ABM treaty and it's a matter of months, not years and it's been months," one White House official told United Press International Tuesday.
In October, the president tried and failed to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to make changes to the agreement to allow for development of the defense system. But Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council's International Committee said in Washington Tuesday that Moscow would take Bush's decision "without hysteria"
Other officials, briefing reporters at the Russian Embassy in Washington, said U.S. withdrawal would not exacerbate bilateral relations. Sergei Karaganov, head of the Council for Foreign Relations and Defense Policy said U.S. abrogation of the treaty was better for Russia than talks on modification of the ABM treaty at which Russia would have had to make concessions.
In Moscow, Russia's Foreign Minister also affirmed that an American withdrawal from the ABM treaty would not be a surprise to Putin's government. "Our forecasts did not exclude the possibility of the United States secession from the ABM Treaty," he told reporters.
Speaking to cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C., Tuesday, Bush said: "Last week we conducted another promising test of our missile defense technology. For the good of peace, we're moving forward with an active program to determine what works and what does not work. In order to do so, we must move beyond the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, a treaty that was written in a different era for a different enemy."
On Dec. 3, the Pentagon launched its third missile defense test. This was the third time the military had successfully tested "hit to kill" technology, a system that would intercept missiles with another missile from outer space.
In the October meeting in Crawford, Texas Bush announced that he had intended to reduce the stockpile of U.S. offensive nuclear weapons, an offer the White House had hoped would entice Putin into agreeing to their changes of the ABM treaty.
The president's upcoming decision however may raise concerns among some European leaders and non-proliferation groups. In Berlin on Dec. 10, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told reporters that he thought the 1972 treaty was "useful" in one form or another.
The Council for a Livable World released a statement Tuesday calling the decision "unnecessary because virtually all scientific experts believe that the U.S. can continue to test a missile defense system without breaking the ABM Treaty for many years to come, unwise because it could start a chain reaction that jeopardizes the three decades of progress the United States has made in reducing the threat from nuclear weapons."
interestalert.com |
