- MOSCOW - President Vladimir
V. Putin said today that if the United States proceeded on its own to construct
a missile defense shield over its territory and that of its allies, Russia
would eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal with multiple warheads
reversing an achievement of arms control in recent decades to ensure that
it would be able to overwhelm such a shield.
-
- Mr. Putin made his comments in a meeting with American
correspondents that lasted nearly three hours tonight and was organized
last week to give him an opportunity to explain his views after his summit
meeting with President Bush in Slovenia on Saturday.
-
- The Russian leader emphasized that though he is buoyed
by Mr. Bush's pledge that Washington and Moscow will work cooperatively
in coming months to investigate the full ramifications of Mr. Bush's vision
for a new security framework that includes missile defenses, Russia is
also very alert to unilateral American actions.
-
- And in response to comments made Sunday in Washington
by Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that the United
States would proceed with missile defense with or without Russia, Mr. Putin
said Russia would not threaten or try to prevent American actions, but
would "augment" its nuclear forces without regard to treaties
that now require the elimination of multiple warheads.
-
- "When we hear statements that the programs would
go with us or without us, well, we cannot force anyone to do the things
we would like them to," he said. "We offer our cooperation. We
offer to work jointly. If there is no need that such joint work is needed,
well, suit yourself."
-
- However, Mr. Putin added, "we stand ready"
to respond to any unilateral American action, even though Russia does not
see an immediate threat from a missile shield.
-
- "I am confident that at least for the coming 25
years" American missile defenses "will not cause any substantial
damage to the national security of Russia," he said. But he added,
"We will reinforce our capability" by "mounting multiple
warheads on our missiles" and "that will cost us a meager sum."
And so, he said, "the nuclear arsenal of Russia will be augmented
multifold."
-
- He said both the Start I and Start II treaties would
be negated by an American decision to build missile defenses in violation
of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. Such a step would eliminate
verification and inspection requirements, he said, reviving an era in which
Russia would hide its abilities and intentions.
-
- Mr. Putin said Russia was ready to move expeditiously
on talks with Mr. Bush's top aides, but he said he believed that the two
sides first needed to discuss whether serious threats actually existed
or might emerge in the future, then determine what missile defense technologies
might be brought to bear against them, and then determine what provisions
of the ABM treaty came into conflict with such a system.
-
- Speaking in the Kremlin library at the round conference
table where he met President Clinton last year, Mr. Putin also stated for
the first time that Russia had taken an interest in ensuring that China's
strategic concerns are addressed in the debate.
-
- China has a much smaller nuclear missile force and fears
that its national nuclear deterrent would be nullified by missile defenses.
-
- "One must be very careful here," he said. "The
transparency of our action is very important, lest none of the nuclear
powers would feel abandoned or that two countries are making agreements
behind their backs."
-
- Asked if he had made a commitment to China, he replied,
"there is a commitment to preserve the balance of security that we
have now in the world as a whole and in this sense, China is an important
element, and not only China." Mr. Putin said the United States should
bear in mind China's strong economic potential and its growing ability
to respond to national security threats.
-
- He said what concerned him most was that a unilateral
American deployment of missile defenses could "result in a hectic,
uncontrolled arms race on the borders of our country and neighboring countries."
-
- Mr. Putin said he reported to the Chinese president,
Jiang Zemin, by telephone today the results of the meeting and Mr. Bush's
message about a cooperative approach to examining threats to international
security. Mr. Jiang and Mr. Putin met last week in Shanghai with Central
Asian leaders to form a security and trade cooperation pact.
-
- Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Putin joked that
he had tried to speak some English with Mr. Bush, but he said he feared
that Mr. Bush had only pretended to understand him.
-
- He also spoke with pride about his record as a career
K.G.B. officer, pointing out that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger
had once told him that "all decent people start out in intelligence,"
as Mr. Kissinger did. Then Mr. Putin added, referring to President Bush's
father, who served as director of central intelligence, "The 41st
president was not working in a laundry, he was working at the C.I.A."
-
- While Mr. Putin directed his most pointed remarks at
the comments of Ms. Rice, he praised a statement by Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell that the United States was not seeking the "destruction"
of the ABM treaty. He said he had "taken due note" of Mr. Powell's
assertion that Washington was seeking "effective but limited"
defenses against potential ballistic missile threats from so- called rogue
nations.
-
- In identifying with Mr. Powell's formulation, Mr. Putin
appeared to be signaling a hope that the Bush administration could be persuaded
to work within the ABM treaty to develop the kind of limited defense system
that Russia itself proposed.
-
- Mr. Putin acknowledged that he and Mr. Bush had talked
in detail about Iran, and Russia's growing arms relationship with its leaders.
He said Russia had a "complex relationship" with Iran, but he
praised President Mohammad Khatami as a "very moderate and very worthy
partner" who was trying to bring Iran out of isolation.
-
- He said Russia was committed not to supply nuclear or
ballistic missile technologies to Iran, but would continue to sell defensive
arms to Tehran, and he complained that the United States was guilty of
"unfair competition in the arms market" by insisting that these
sales should cease. He revealed that he had provided Mr. Bush with the
names of American companies who have recently been in Iran offering "large
scale" cooperation, which he did not specify.
-
- Still, the Russian leader said he took seriously the
concerns of both Israel and the United States about the sale of dangerous
technologies. If Russian individuals or companies continue secretly to
provide Iran with illicit arms and technologies "to make money we
will try to terminate these activities." He then proposed that Russian
and American intelligence agencies step up their cooperation to counter
the trafficking in dangerous technologies, "irrespective of the country
of origin."
-
- Mr. Putin called on the United States to take a more
precise position on how Moscow and Washington might cooperate to fight
Islamic extremism emanating from the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
-
- He pointed out that terrorist camps in Afghanistan, known
to both United States and Russian intelligence services, had trained terrorists
responsible for the deaths of both Russian and American citizens.
-
- "We have to define a position on the Taliban,"
he said. "We need to know what to do about them."
-
- Mr. Putin said he had spent some time in his discussions
with Mr. Bush responding to American criticism of Russia's military campaign
in the rebellious republic of Chechnya, the Kremlin's campaign against
the country's only independent television network, NTV, and Moscow's pressure
on neighboring Georgia.
-
- On Chechnya, Mr. Putin, without mentioning the name of
his predecessor, laid responsibility for the catastrophe in Chechnya on
Boris N. Yeltsin's 1995 decision to "de facto" recognize Chechnya's
independence, paving the way for the Islamic extremism there and the rise
of warlords who, he said, divided the republic into criminal fiefs.
-
- He did not address allegations that the military campaign
against the Chechen rebels that precipitated his own political career in
1999 had led to widespread assaults on civilians and left hundreds of thousands
homeless.
-
- But he said he asked Mr. Bush what the American leader
would have done if terrorist bands "from down south" had seized
"half the state of Texas" and used it as a base of terrorism.
-
- Mr. Putin said it was "not a fundamental question
to us whether Chechnya becomes independent or stays within Russia,"
but rather that Russia's goal was to ensure that it never again serve as
a "launching pad for terrorist acts." His complaint about Georgia
was couched in similar terms. He asserted that when Mr. Yeltsin was still
in office, he won the agreement of President Eduard A. Shevardnadze of
Georgia to allow Russia military forces to attack Chechen rebels taking
sanctuary on Georgian territory and that Mr. Shevardnadze reneged.
-
- "This is the only problem we have with Georgia,"
Mr. Putin said, defending his decision to impose a strict visa regime on
Georgian citizens as necessary to stanch the flow of Chechen rebels across
the Georgian frontier.
-
- On the sensitive issue of freedom of the press in Russia,
Mr. Putin provided no details about his own role in fostering the Kremlin-backed
takeover of the country's largest independent television network. But he
accused Vladimir Gusinsky, the media baron and NTV founder, of "garnering
about $1 billion" of state funds in building the network, which Mr.
Putin said he thought would never be paid back.
-
- And he said it might take a number of years for the Russian
economy to sustain a full spectrum of economically independent media organizations,
and he added, "I am very confident that without a free media, we cannot
have a normal democratic society."
|