(RIA Novosti) - Moscow hopes Poland will play a constructive role in Russia's dialogue with the European Union and NATO, particularly regarding U.S. plans to deploy missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, a foreign ministry's spokesman said Tuesday.
The United States has ambitious plans to deploy a network of anti-missile systems across the world, and there has been speculation they would be based in at least two former communist-bloc countries, which Russia sees as a threat to its national security, reports Trend.
"We regard negatively U.S. plans to deploy anti-missile defense system in Europe, and we believe that with the possible deployment of the European NATO missile defense system it would have a negative impact on strategic stability, regional security and intergovernmental relations," Mikhail Kamynin said before an official visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Poland October 4-5.
Earlier in August, Russian Defense minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia had some doubts about U.S. plans to use intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional warheads in preventive strikes against terrorists, and was not ready to join them.
Ivanov, who is also a Russian deputy prime minister, said that, theoretically, long-range cruise missiles, as well as medium-range ballistic missiles could be used against terrorists, but that neither Russia nor the U.S. could deploy the latter under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.