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Russia says no progress on missile shield talks with U.S. -1

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Russia and the United States have failed to make progress during two rounds of consultations on the deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in Europe, a senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday.
(Adds details, quotes in paras 2, 4-12)

MOSCOW, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and the United States have failed to make progress during two rounds of consultations on the deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in Europe, a senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday.

On Tuesday a team of U.S. military experts visited a radar facility rented by Russia in Azerbaijan, which Moscow has offered as an alternative to the planned U.S. missile shield in Central Europe. The specialists held informal technical consultations with their Russian counterparts.

"I cannot say that our positions have become closer," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak told a news conference.

Moscow vehemently opposes Washington's plans to place a missile interceptor base in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, and considers them a threat to Russia's national security. Earlier this month, defense officials and diplomats from Russia and the U.S. held talks in Paris on the issue.

As well as the Gabala radar in Azerbaijan, Moscow has offered several other compromise solutions, if Washington abandons its European shield plans.

The Gabala radar has been operational since early 1985. With a range of 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles), it is the most powerful in the region and can detect any missile launches in Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa.

Following the U.S. delegation's visit to Azerbaijan, deputy director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Brigadier General Patrick O'Reilly, said the U.S. was studying the radar's parameters, and would analyze them later.

However, MDA director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, said on Tuesday that the Gabala radar may only be used as an integral part of U.S. missile defenses in Europe, and could not serve as an alternative to the European shield.

Commenting on Obering's statement, Kislyak said Russia never meant the Gabala radar to be incorporated into the U.S. missile defense system.

"The proposal made by the Russian president to share the Gabala radar implied the use of the facility as an instrument for monitoring the proliferation of missile technologies, rather than deploying it as part of U.S. missile defenses," the Russian diplomat said.

Kislyak said that despite the current deadlock in Russia-U.S. missile talks, the sides would continue negotiations at various levels in the hope of finding a compromise solution.

"We will see how this [negotiating] process is advancing," he said. "We will hold additional rounds of consultations, including on the results of the U.S. experts' visit to Gabala."

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