NATO: Rasmussen encourages NATO-Russia summit on the European missile shield
(WAPA) – Today, the secretary general of the North Atlantic treaty organisation, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, declared that he was in favor of a NATO-Russia summit. The meeting has not been scheduled yet – in which the important European topics regarding anti-missile space shield (SDI – Strategic Defense Initiative) – which might be realised next year in Chicago, USA.
Rasmussen considers missile defense in Europe as “A key role,” and reiterated that “A cooperation on missile defense makes sense because it would make our systems more efficient, and has a political meaning because it shows that our missile defense is not directed against Russia”. A concept explained several times in Moscow, which despite having agreed to cooperate on the shield during the NATO-Russia Council meeting in Lisbon held last November, continues to fear that this constitutes a threat, especially for the borders near the planned location of the stations.
The NATO secretary-general proposed his idea of how this defense system must be designed: “Thanks to the cooperation with Moscow, we can build two missile defense systems with the same purpose: to face new threats and former suspects simultaneously”.
Rasmussen argues for two distinct systems that operate independently but interact through exchange of information. On the other hand, Russia would feel reassured by a joint system that has a large-scale interoperability.
For the record, the so-called “former suspicions,” potential attackers of Europe with intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads, according to threats, would respond to the names of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran) and Kim Jong-il (North Korea).
