Question: The US has asked the United Kingdom and Denmark for the use of early warning radars located in their territories in the interests of a global missile defense system now being developed by the United States, some media have reported. Along with this, Japan has declared its readiness to move from a stage of study to the practical deployment together with the US of a theater missile defense system. How can you comment all this?

Answer: As is known, the United States has announced its decision to start deploying a global missile defense. This intention causes our regret. For it diverts resources from countering the real dangers and challenges, and provokes an arms race, including in space.

Russia, by contrast, suggests moving along a different road - to carry out a broad range of legal and practical steps to ensure predictability, trust and transparency in the interrelated areas of strategic offensive and defensive arms, including the elaboration of appropriate agreements.

We suggest concentrating on the positive program of strategic interaction which was agreed upon by the Russian and US presidents in the course of the recent summits. In it there are specific agreements on cooperation in the field of a stabilizing theater missile defense both on a bilateral and on a multilateral basis. Of course, such cooperation should be carried out with due consideration for the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and should not be directed against any third countries.

Now we are engaged in such a dialogue with the NATO countries. We believe that theater missile defense systems should be created not on a narrow bloc basis but with a broad composition of participants. The example of nonstrategic EuroABM can be used in other regions as well.

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