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Today's Top News
Czech Missile Shield: Russia to 'Retaliate' Over US Plan, President Dmitry Medvedev Says
Russia will take "retaliatory steps" over a planned US missile shield in the Czech Republic, according to President Dmitry Medvedev.
"We are extremely upset by this situation," Mr Medvedev told a news conference at the G8 summit on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
"We will not be hysterical about this but we will think of retaliatory steps," he said, while adding that he wants to continue talks on the issue with Washington.
The radar base will be set up after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement in Prague on Tuesday.
The US plans to combine this with 10 interceptor missiles located in Poland, and wants the system to be in operation by 2012.
The US has branded Russia's "military means" threat over plans for a missile shield in Europe as "bellicose rhetoric".
The Pentagon said the comments were "designed to make Europeans nervous about participating" in the plans.
Moscow furiously opposes the plans, despite US assurances that it is designed to counter a threat from the Middle East, not from Russia.
In an earlier statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry statement said: "If a US strategic anti-missile shield starts to be deployed near our borders, we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military-technical means."
In February, then-President Vladimir Putin said Russia could deploy missiles in the Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland, if the US plans went ahead.
Moscow added that there was "no doubt that the grouping of elements of the strategic US arsenal faced towards Russian territory" would mean they had to "take adequate measures to compensate for the threats to its national security". It said: "This is not our choice."
A White House spokesman said the US planned to continue discussions with Russia.
He said: "We seek strategic co-operation on preventing missiles from rogue nations, like Iran, from threatening our friends and allies. He added that the US and Russia should be "equal partners".
The plans are unpopular with voters in the Czech Republic, while the US has so far failed to reach an agreement with Poland over the placing of missiles there.
On signing the deal with the Czech Republic, Ms Rice said the next American president will have to decide whether to continue with plans for the missile defence system.
She said: "It's hard for me to believe that that's not a capability an American president is going to want to have."
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2008.
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7 Comments so far
Show AllDon't buy what's being said on the surface about these moves. Stretch and think deeply about what else might be the purpose of these missles. All is not as it seems.
The war-profiteers are nostalgic for the Cold War profits so they're starting another.
Them Ruskies don't want to buy Iranian fuel from Shell, I guess.
These Bushites must think that sending Condo helps because who wants to be seen as a racist misogynist for not agreeing with her?
Why is the US "protecting" Europeans? Europeans are big boys (and girls) and if they perceive a threat from the ME, then they can take care of it themselves.
Oh, wait, I gettit. This is a deal for US weapons manufacturers to sell product in Europe.
Once the product has been designed to the buyer's specifications, the product needs to be properly deployed, otherwise, ya know, ya miss the whole point. Too bad it's a crappy system not worth deploying in the first place and overpriced. $$MY TAXES$$ Nooooooo!
Small bet on Russia not doing squat re: 'retaliatory steps'
The U.S. is so smug and self assured it's hilarious.
I hope the people of Europe can rise up and prevent the further militarization of their continent by the U.S. American citizens sure won't.
This is the real juice behind the war on terror. Neocons decided that the Cold War was good for business, could stop a recession, and that communism doesn't fit into their freemarket world view anyway. We've been surrounding Russia and China, attempting to form NATO alliances with former Soviet states, attempting to place missile defense between Europe and Russia, and generally abondoning all of the progress achieved through negotiations and arms treaties over the past 60 years. And doing it all under the phony pretense of terrorism. Thanks BushCo. Criminally Inc.
Again, there's plenty of analyses at www.globalresearch.ca . Some are long, but provide a lot of information and very well analysed is all or most of what I read there on the topic of these U.S.-EU-NATO empire building, stretching "defence" base plans, and other doings of this trio ensemble. WSWS.org surely has good articles and perhaps some are copied at GR, but I recommend GR because of the various sources of the articles, reports and analyses. WSWS is certainly a website to check though.
I just viewed the video and I wonder what kind of slip it was when Rice said 'deepy' before correcting and saying 'deeper'; and also wonder what she really thinks, and if she's aware that this is extremely and totally [bad], then why she's playing slave.
I hope Russia flatens the missile sites to protect their home land. This is no different than CUBA and the US reaction.