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Russia slams missile pact

MOSCOW: Moscow strongly reacted to a U.S. deal with Poland to build missile defences on Polish territory.

“Russia’s response will be technologically simple and highly effective,” said Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin. “We are convinced the U.S. missiles will target the Russian strategic arsenals.”

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed the agreement in Warsaw on Wednesday to deploy 10 U.S. anti-missiles in Poland. The U.S. also agreed to provide Patriot interceptor missiles to protect Poland against a possible attack by Russia.

Mr. Rogozin said Washington’s decision to supply Patriot missiles to Poland “clears the propaganda smokescreen from the patently anti-Russian U.S. plan to build a strategic missile shield.”

Russia and Belarus on Monday agreed to build a joint missile defence in what experts said was a reaction to the deployment of the U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia has rejected a France-drafted Security Council resolution on Georgia, saying it distorted the spirit and letter of a peace plan negotiated by Moscow and Paris.

Russia’s U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin said France had bowed to the U.S. pressure and rewritten the original Security Council draft based on the six points of the peace plan. The text submitted to the Security Council on Tuesday called for an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops and omitted some key points in the peace signed by all sides in the conflict – Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia, he said.

These included a demand that Georgia renounce the use of force against its breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and international debate on ways to ensure the security of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

At the same time, the draft insisted on the territorial integrity of Georgia, while Russia said Georgia had destroyed its integrity by launching a full-scale military attempt to recapture South Ossetia.

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