MOSCOW (AP) – President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that Russia will still deploy missiles near Poland if the U.S. pushes ahead with a missile shield in Eastern Europe.
Medvedev reaffirmed the threat four days after he welcomed Obama to Moscow for a summit aimed to improving troubled ties.
Medvedev and Obama reached a preliminary agreement on new reductions in the Russian and American nuclear arsenals. Russian officials have suggested Moscow may not sign a treaty on the cuts unless the U.S. abandons the previous administration’s plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Medvedev said the Kremlin believes the Bush administration’s decision to build those facilities was “a mistake.”
“If we cannot agree on these questions, you know the consequences,” he told a news conference at the Group of Eight nations’ summit in L’Aquila, Italy.
“What I said in my (state-of-the-nation) address-I have not withdrawn this idea,” he said.
He first made the threat in a state-of the-nation address just hours after Barack Obama was elected in November.
The new remark appeared aimed to stake out a firm position ahead of further talks with the U.S. on an arms reduction deal to replace the 1991 START I treaty, which expires in December. At the same time, his use of the word “revise”-rather than something more unequivocal-appeared to leave the door open for further bargaining on missile defense.
Medvedev made more upbeat comments about his first summit with Obama.
He praised Obama for ordering a review of the missile plans, saying that made him feel “cautiously positive” that the U.S. will abandon the idea.
“Whose point of view will prevail in the American administration, I do not know,” he said.
During the Moscow summit Monday and Tuesday, Obama reiterated the U.S. insistence that the missile defense system would pose no threat to Russia. U.S. officials say they intent would be to guard against a potential missile threat from Iran, but Russian officials say they fear its real intent is to weaken their country’s nuclear deterrent.
