Russia, France for upholding stability

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JULY 2. Russia and France have pledged to work jointly to preserve strategic stability and issued veiled criticism of U.S. plans to build a National Missile Defence.

The Presidents of the two countries, Mr. Vladimir Putin and Mr. Jacques Chirac, expressed ``willingness to act jointly and on a multilateral level in the interest of building strategic stability,'' they said in a joint statement signed at the end of their talks in Moscow.

The two leaders said they attached priority to the task of ensuring ``strategic balance in the world in new conditions that emerged after the cold war''.

The statement made no direct reference to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the U.S. wants to abandon, but stated that ``the instruments for strategic balance exist'' and warned against replacing them ``with a system that is not binding''.

The Russian and French leaders also reiterated their support for ``nuclear deterrence based on the principle of sufficiency''. This clearly referred to American plans to build an anti-missile shield, which Russia and France fear will devalue their nuclear arsenals.

The two countries also emphasised the need for preventing an arms race in outer space, favoured an early enforcement of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and described the nuclear non-proliferation pact as a ``major instrument of stability''.

The two-day summit showed that Russia and France had overcome a chill in bilateral relations caused by Mr. Chirac's strong criticism of Russia's war in Chechnya.

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Section  : International
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