RUSSIA - May 28 - Moscow Still Adamant On US Missile Defence.

The Defence Ministry says its opposition to scrapping the 1972 ABM Treaty will not be changed by a reported proposal by the US administration to incorporate Russian missiles and radars into a new anti-missile defence system. (A report in The New York Times, citing unidentified US administration officials, says Pres. Bush hopes to involve Moscow more deeply in US missile-defence plans by offering Pres. Putin at their first face-to-face meeting in Slovenia in mid-June a package of weapons purchases, joint anti-missile exercises and money to rebuild its outmoded early-warning radar system and a proposal to include Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles in any new defence. The 1972 treaty says no nation will risk launching a missile attack if it is left defenceless against a retaliatory strike. The US says the spread of missile technology requires advanced nations to erect defences against at least the handful of missiles that could one day be launched against them by terrorists or a hostile nation).

Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov says Moscow is open to selling its S-300 air-defence system to the US because it has already been sold to dozens of nations, but that would contribute nothing to a missile-defence system, because S-300 is designed to work against aircraft, not ballistic missiles. He says Moscow discussed missile-defence strategies with the Clinton administration and is open to continuing talks with the Bush administration. He adds: "In order to hold a discussion, you have to have some subject for it, a plan, a concrete understanding of what the other side wants. For now, there are no such plans". He says the ABM Treaty cannot be easily scrapped because it is the foundation of dozens of other side agreements that have kept the nuclear arms race from spiralling out of control. "You cannot take a brick out of a wall and hope that it will stand. It will come tumbling down, and it's almost impossible to calculate the consequences".