RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 33, Part I, 16 February 2001

MOSCOW CRITICIZES RUMSFELD STATEMENT... Major General Vladimir Belous, the head of Moscow's Center of International and Strategic Studies, told ITAR-TASS on 15 February that a statement by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that Moscow is violating the anti-proliferation regime recalls "Cold War" times. Also on 15 February, Defense Minister Igor Sergeev dismissed as "nonsense" a report in the "Washington Times" that U.S. spy satellites have pinpointed the location of tactical nuclear warheads in Kaliningrad, Russian and Western agencies reported. And Russia's Council for Foreign and Defense Policy said that the U.S. continues to rely on a radar site in Varda (Norway) even though Washington has said that it has transferred control of that site to the Norwegian government, ITAR-TASS reported. PG

...BUT HOPES FOR DIALOGUE ON NMD. Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov on 15 February told a visiting European Union delegation that Moscow hopes for "a calm dialogue" with the United States over the what he said are the threats NMD poses to international security, ITAR-TASS reported. Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed as "no more than a fabrication" media reports about a bill supposedly before the U.S. Congress calling for the elimination of specific terrorists and supporters of terrorism, Interfax reported. PG

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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 33, Part I, 16 February 2001