Lavrov denies that Russia, U.S. preparing to exchange declarations on missile defense

Patriot Missile Launch file photo

BERLIN. Feb 27 (Interfax) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has denied media reports alleging that Russia and the U.S. are preparing to exchange declarations on cooperation on missile defense and on guarantees that it will not be directed against Russia’s interests.

“I have read these reports and talked with their authors. I don’t know the author’s sources, but there are no grounds for such reports whatsoever. I don’t know where this information came from,” Lavrov told journalists following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Berlin on Tuesday.

“We have set out our position. We have adopted enough of declarations both within the OSCE framework and within the Russia-NATO Council framework. It has been declared at the top level that we all will guarantee indivisibility of security, and then none of us will ensure their security
at the cost of security of others,” he said.

Russia is convinced that a NATO missile defense system “will create a problem for our security, and therefore declarations are not enough here,” he said.

“If we cannot agree on a joint system, as Russia has proposed more than once starting 2007, when President Putin visited the U.S., we surely should talk not about new declarations but about guarantees that this system will not be directed against the Russian nuclear potential, which can be verified based on impartial military-technical criteria,” he said.

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