- MOSCOW (AFP) -- The head of the Russian military's general staff gave
a sharp response May 24 to U.S. proposals to set up a network of "interceptor"
missiles in central Europe to ward off potential attacks.
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- General Yuri Baluyevsky said Russian
inter-continental missile systems would be more than a match for the planned
U.S. deployment - which Washington says is being planned not with Russia
in mind but in case of attack from countries such as China, Iran and North
Korea.
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- "Already in the press they are naming
concrete countries that could be the site of a so-called ... forward region
in the United States' anti-missile defense system. One of those states
is Poland, and it is not excluded that another could be Romania,"
Baluyevsky said in comments quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.
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- "This is territory that is so close
to our state that the siting there of this forward region, which could
include systems for detecting and hitting inter-continental ballistic missiles
and their warheads, couldn't fail to concern us," Baluyevsky said.
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- "We can already say that current
and future missile defense systems, created today, tomorrow and in the
foreseeable future ... will be successfully overcome by our inter-continental
ballistic missiles and their warheads," Baluyevsky said.
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- Washington has said it hopes to set up
around 10 missile interceptors in central Europe to ward off potential
attacks with ballistic missiles.
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- The Pentagon says that no decision has
been taken yet about where the missile defense system might be located.
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- The Russian general referred approvingly
on May 24 to President Vladimir Putin's recent state of the nation speech
in which he warned of the necessity to keep up with the United States in
the military sphere.
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