NATO, Russia discussed anti-missile shield in Europe

NATO is ready to cooperate with Russia on the missile shield issue but there is much to be resolved, Alliance Secretary-General Anders Fog Rasmussen has stated at a NATO-Russia Council meeting, where the two sides again failed to agree on a joint missile defense system in Europe.

“Many key issues still need to be addressed. We never said we would agree on missile defense overnight, or even in a few months,” Rasmusen said during the NATO-Russia Council meeting in Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi. “We are determined to keep up the dialogue and to keep up the work. And we are making progress in matching our visions of the missile defense project,” he stressed.

Russia and NATO agreed to cooperate on the so-called European missile defense system at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010. NATO insists there should be two independent systems that exchange information, while Russia favors a joint system with full-scale interoperability.