Rice 'disappointed' at Russia's stance on missile shield

SOFIA: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed disappointment here Wednesday at Russia's reaction to Washington's plans to install part of a missile defence shield in eastern Europe.
 
"I'm sorry to say it was predictable, if disappointing, given all the effort both US Defense Secretary (Robert) Gates and I have made to offer to the Russians significant ways for transparency, confidence and for cooperation," Rice said.

Earlier, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had warned that he was considering countermeasures if the United States goes ahead with plans for a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Medvedev said a deal on the missile plan signed this week between the United States and the Czech Republic "offends us greatly."

"Russia isn't going to get hysterical but will be studying countermeasures," Medvedev told reporters after a summit of Group of Eight leaders including US President George W. Bush in the northern Japanese town of Toyako.

Rice said she hoped Russia would "look at the actual threat environment (based) on the fact that the Iranians are developing ever longer ranges of missiles which they apparently intend to test."

Iran test-fired nine missiles, including a Shahab-3, in the early morning from an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert, state-run Arabic channel Al-Alam and its English counterpart Press-TV reported.

In this context, Moscow would realise that the missile shield "is not aimed at them," Rice said.

Responding to tensions between the US and Russia over the ex-Soviet state of Georgia, Rice said Washington "considers the territorial integrity of Georgia to be inviolable."

And she continued: "There have been a number of moves recently by the Russian Federation that have in fact not been helpful in terms of ... the conflict there between Georgia and Abkhazia."

Washington and Moscow have recently traded accusations of fanning tensions in Georgia, where violence has flared in the past week in Abkhazia, one of two regions that broke from Tbilisi after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Rice was headed to Georgia later on Wednesday, where she was scheduled to attend a private dinner with Georgia's US-backed president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Rice rejected suggestions that relations between Moscow and Washington had deteriorated in general and that US President George W. Bush was leaving a "broken" US-Russian relationship to whoever succeeds him in the White House.

Rice pointed to many areas of cooperation, notably on Iran, North Korea, counter-terrorism and civil nuclear cooperation, and noted that the US strongly supported Russian membership of the World Trade Organisation.

"I think we're leaving a very strong relationship ... but it's a complicated relationship," she said.

Rice had been in Sofia to receive a medal for her role in obtaining the release a year ago of Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor jailed in Libya.

During her brief stop, she met with Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin, Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev and President Georgy Parvanov.