Agence France-Presse,
London: Russia must decide if it wants positive relations with the West, Britain said Monday after President Vladimir Putin warned of a new Cold War-style arms race. Putin said Sunday that Russia would have to respond if the United States built a planned anti-missile defence shield near Russia's borders and warned it would point its missiles at European targets.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Europe as a whole had “concerns about Russia's behaviour and will not be shy in expressing those concerns”.
“We want to have a constructive relationship but the nature of that relationship is as much up to Russia as to us,” he told reporters.
“We want to have a constructive dialogue with Russia. We want to be able to talk about issues such as Kosovo, Iran and other global issues in a constructive way.”
Russia had nothing to fear from the anti-missile defence shield, he added, saying: “It's not aimed at Russia. It's aimed at the possibility of rogue states having nuclear weapons.”
The shield would not be effective against Russia because it would be too close to her borders to bring down her missiles and Moscow's nuclear arsenal was too large in any case, the spokesman said.
Analysts have assessed that Anglo-Russian relations are at a post-Cold War low following the death from radiation poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko and British attempts to extradite the chief suspect.
The Kremlin is also angered at London's refusal to allow the extradition of exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who has called for the overthrow of Putin's government, and the former Chechnen leader Akhmed Zakayev.
Putin at the weekend described Britain's extradition request for Andrei Lugovoi, suspected of poisoning Litvinenko in London last November, as “foolishness” and politically-motivated.
Blair's spokesman refused to comment on Putin's comments on the Litvinenko case and said the extradition was a matter for state prosecutors alone.
But he said: “We haven't had a formal response from Russia. What we have is a well-argued, well-documented case that the Russians are aware of.”
He refused to rule out that Blair and Putin would meet for bilateral talks when the G8 summit in Germany begins Wednesday.
But he said it would not overshadow discussions on other areas such as tackling climate change and aid to Africa.
