Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States on Wednesday of restarting the arms race with its plans to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe.
”I think that those who are professionally aware of this problem understand that there is nothing ludicrous about this issue because the arms race is starting again. Strategic stability is being damaged,” Lavrov said at a press conference after a meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers outside Berlin.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was also attending the Potsdam meeting, on Tuesday described Russian concerns about the shield as ”ludicrous”.
Washington wants to base the shield in the former Soviet states of Poland and the Czech Republic and says it is aimed to defend against attacks from states such as North Korea, but Russia insists it endangers its security.
Lavrov said: ”All they [the Americans] are saying is ‘don’t worry it is not aimed at you’, but our analysis is that such answers are ludicrous.”
Rice responded: ”The idea is that this particular missile defence programme cannot and is not expected to be able to somehow degrade the Russian nuclear deterrent.”
She said Russia’s nuclear deterrent ”would overwhelm quite easily anything that is anticipated now or in the future for American and European missile defence.”
Rice said she hoped that ”we have taken care of the North Korean nuclear threat. I think it is a little early to declare victory on that one and we certainly haven’t yet been able to take care of the Iranian nuclear programme.
”So there are future threats to be concerned about.” — Sapa-AFP