RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 50, Part I, 13 March 2001
IVASHOV SAYS MOSCOW WON'T EXIT ABM ACCORD IMMEDIATELY EVEN IF U.S. DOES. Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, who heads the Russian Defense Ministry's Department for International Military Cooperation, said Moscow has no plans to pull out of the ABM treaty immediately even if it sees evidence that the United States is doing so, ITAR-TASS reported on 12 March. But Ivashov did say that a U.S. decision to go ahead with NMD could return the world to "a Cold War state." He also indicated that Russia's "eastern neighbors" are interested in the kind of missile defense system Moscow has proposed for Europe. Meanwhile, however, President Putin has reportedly ordered the suspension of the dismantling of nuclear warheads as called for under the Start II treaty, MSNBC.com but no other agency reported on 11 March. PG
Copyright (c) 2001. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. http://www.rferl.org
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