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NATO to systemize security threats of missile defense at NATO-Russia summit

10 November 2010 18:01 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. NATO expects to systemize security threats of its missile defense during the NATO-Russia summit in Lisbon, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said on Wednesday, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

"We would codify that as well as laying out a list of where we can cooperate," he said.

Russia has received NATO’s proposals for joint participation in the European missile-defense program, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier in November.

Moscow will analyze the proposals, he said, adding that it was in both parties’ interests to neutralize common threats.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday the alliance hoped to work with Russia on missile defense.

Speaking at a RIA Novosti news conference in Moscow, Rasmussen said he wanted to see Russia-NATO cooperation in the field of Theater Missile Defense, the system aimed at protecting deployed military forces.

Any cooperation between Russia and NATO in the missile-defense sphere will not be directed against any third party, Lavrov stressed.

Russian and NATO missile-defense systems are unlikely to be integrated into a single system, however, Rasmussen said.

These two systems should interact so that we have a common "security roof" through information exchange, he said - separate systems but within a common architecture of cooperation.

The NATO chief also proposed conducting joint missile-defense exercises with Russia.

Rasmussen previously proposed the creation of a missile shield from Vancouver to Vladivostok that would integrate the U.S. and NATO missile-defense systems with a role for Russia.

Russia has retained staunch opposition to the deployment of missile-defense systems near its borders, claiming they would be a security threat. NATO and the United States insist that the shield would defend NATO territories against missiles from North Korea and Iran and would not be directed at Russia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has campaigned for a pan-European security pact instead of the shield, although Western nations and NATO have dismissed the plan as irrelevant and unnecessary.

In Lisbon the alliance and Russia will also finalize a deal on the supply of Russian helicopters for the Afghan armed forces and on training forces for fighting drugs trafficking.