It's equally troublesome that Putin's interview with the world's press was not published anywhere, because he had a press conference at G-8 which is reasonably honest and Putin expressed many concerns. None of the media present published the interview which is weird.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: ... and the more countries there are that want to participate in this system. What does Russia gain by being so fiercely opposed to this system? Are you hoping that Washington will eventually abandon its plans to install an anti-missile defence system or do you have other goals, since Washington has already said that it will not allow Russia to veto this programme?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: I would start with the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces Treaty in Europe (ACAF). We have not just stated that we are ready to comply with the treaty, like certain others have done. We really are implementing it: we have removed all of our heavy weapons from the European part of Russia and put them behind the Urals. We have reduced our Armed Forces by 300,000. We have taken several other steps required by the ACAF. But what have we seen in response? Eastern Europe is receiving new weapons,
two new military bases are being set up in Romania and in Bulgaria, and there are two new missile launch areas - a radar in Czech republic and missile systems in Poland. And we are asking ourselves the question:
what is going on? Russia is disarming unilaterally. But if we disarm unilaterally then we would like to see our partners be willing to do the same thing in Europe. On the contrary, Europe is being pumped full of new weapons systems. And of course we cannot help but be concerned.
What should we do in these circumstances? Of course we have declared a moratorium.
This applies to the missile defence system. But not just the missile defence system itself. Since if this missile system is put in place, it will work automatically with the entire nuclear capability of the United States. It will be an integral part of the US nuclear capability.
I draw your attention and that of your readers to the fact that,
for the first time in history - and I want to emphasize this -
there are elements of the US nuclear capability on the European continent. It simply changes the whole configuration of international security. That is the second thing.
Finally, thirdly, how do they justify this?
By the need to defend themselves against Iranian missiles. But there are no such missiles. Iran has no missiles with a range of 5,000 to 8,000 kilometres.
In other words, we are being told that this missile defence system is there to defend against something that doesn't exist. Do you not think that this is even a little bit funny? But it would only be funny if it were not so said. We are not satisfied with the explanations that we are hearing. There is no justification whatsoever for installing a missile defence system in Europe. Our military experts certainly believe that this system affects the territory of the Russian Federation in front of the Ural mountains. And of course we have to respond to that.
And now I would like to give a definite answer to your question: what do we want?
First of all, we want to be heard. We want our position to be understood. We do not exclude that our American partners might reconsider their decision. We are not imposing anything on anyone. But we are proceeding from common sense and think that everyone else could also use their common s ense. But if this does not take place then we will absolve ourselves from the responsibility of our retaliatory steps because we are not initiating what is certainly growing into a new arms race in Europe. And we want everybody to understand very clearly that we are not going to bear responsibility for this arms race. For example, when they try to shift this responsibility to us in connection with our efforts to improve our strategic nuclear weapons. We did not initiate the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But what response did we give when we discussed this issue with our American partners? We said that we do not have the resources and desire to establish such a system. But as professionals we both understand that a missile defence system for one side and no such a system for the other creates an illusion of security and increases the possibility of a nuclear conflict.
(...)
At that point our partners said: "there's nothing wrong, we are not enemies, we are not going to work against one another". We would point out that we are simply answering them: "
we warned you, we talked about this, you answered us a certain way. So we are going to do what we said we would". And if they put a missile defence system in Europe - and we are warning this today -
there will be retaliatory measures. We need to ensure our security. And we are not the proponents of this process.(...)
© Copyright , Russian President's website , 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5938And the press did not feel it was necessary to publish this story and it was only published on Putin's personal website.
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