May 23, 2007, 19:31 GMT
Moscow - Moscow will not cooperate with the United States on a missile defence shield and will continue a moratorium on a treaty on forces in Europe until other former Warsaw Pact states sign it, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday.
In wide-ranging remarks in Moscow, Ivanov also spoke at length about government-controlled companies he is overseeing, Russian plans to sell arms to the Middle East and nanotechnology.
'We won't cooperate against ourselves,' Ivanov, one of the country's most prominent politicians and considered by many to be a possible leading contender for the presidency in 2008, said of possible partnership on the missile shield.
Washington has been planning the shield to counter possible missile strikes from rogue states including Iran and North Korea for years, but Russia has made opposing the shield a top priority in recent months. The United States has said that missile defence bases in Eastern Europe will not threaten Russia.
'The US missile defence systems are not a threat to Russia,' US State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Wednesday. 'They're not a threat to anyone, save those rogue regimes that might want to try and take a limited attack on either Russia or the United States or any of our trans-Atlantic partners.'
US officials have tried to court Russia as a partner, but the Kremlin has said the shield is directed at it, citing bases planned for Poland and the Czech Republic.
'The explanation that (the shield) is (directed) against North Korea and Iran won't go pass through any gates,' Ivanov said in remarks quoted by Interfax.
Ivanov said Russia did not need a strategic missile shield and that its own missile shield around Moscow worked fine.
Russia's defence minister until March, Ivanov answered a number of questions about defence during the more than 2 hour conference, saying Moscow saw no more need for a treaty that banned short- and mid-range missiles, dubbing it a 'vestige of the Cold War.'
Additionally, Ivanov said Russia would not fulfil the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe until other countries did the same, likely referring to an adapted version of the treaty that has been delayed by NATO states until Russia removes troops from Moldova and Georgia.
The deputy prime minister called military-technology cooperation with Arab countries 'one of the bricks in the foundation on which our relations are based,' saying Moscow would build relationships with Arab nations 'where possible and of course where it answers mutual interests - to do differently is impossible.'
He denied, though, that Syria had requested to re-export Russian anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran or that it could do so without Russian consent. Recent media reports have said Syria and Iran have agreed on a re-export scheme for Russian hardware.
With tensions between Russia and the EU high on a number of issues, Ivanov said the issue of a Russian ban of Polish meat should not be politicized, adding 'experts, not ministers' should engage the problem.
Saying the problem was not Polish meat but meat from third countries transported via Poland, Ivanov said: 'Excuse me, we are not a dump. We don't need such meat.'
Russia, the deputy prime minister said, is economically 'de facto integrated with the European Union.' He warned individual EU members, however, not to create a so-called cordon sanitaire around Russia.
'We don't quite understand the politics of young European states because they harm their own interests, creating problems that lead them into a dead end,' he said, likely referring to Lithuania, which has had Russian fuel supplies cut, and Estonia, which endured a diplomatic row with Moscow after relocating a Soviet-era monument.
He added Russia was a leading power not only because it has 'the largest territory and a military strong enough for Russia's security in any turn of events' but also because 'we have entered the top 10 of developed and powerful economic powers. It's a fact, and it's pleasant.'
Ivanov eagerly spoke about state-owned corporations he is overseeing, saying that the 26 programmes in his control had a budget of 1.31 trillion rubles (about 50 billion dollars).
Ivanov said new, state-owned ship- and aircraft-building firms he is to oversee will make Russia a worldwide competitor, and that the government will soon look into supporting the farm-machine sector.
Additionally, he said Russia would put 100 billion rubles toward the creation of a government-owned nanotechnology company by year's end and said the country had a 'monopoly' on the construction of floating nuclear power plants.
'Only Russia can do this. I see the potential of the development of civil shipbuilding in these sorts of niches,' the deputy prime minister said.
Ivanov also noted carmaker AvtoVAZ and Canadian autoparts manufacturer Magna were to sign an agreement Wednesday, calling it 'another example of 'technology in return for (access) to our market.''
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