*EPF205 08/14/01
Rumsfeld: U.S.-Russia Relationship Must "Make Sense for the 21st Century"
(Article based on Rumsfeld media availability in Russia Aug. 13) (650)
By Louise Fenner
Washington File Staff Writer
The United States wants "to fashion a relationship with Russia that makes sense for the 21st century," U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said during his visit to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov.
In a media availability with Russian journalists August 13 that focused on security issues, particularly missile defense, Rumsfeld said the United States believes the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty has outlived its usefulness because it was developed during the Cold War when the United States and Russia were hostile powers.
The world has changed "dramatically," he said, and the United States is seeking a relationship with Russia similar to that with other nations that have relatively free political and economic systems and that don't try to impose their will on their neighbors: "They don't worry about attacking each other, they don't worry about nuclear exchanges with each other, they don't have treaties with each other trying to control behavior so that it's not hostile."
Since 1972, several states have developed ballistic missiles and "are developing weapons of mass destruction to use with those ballistic missiles," Rumsfeld said. However, the ABM Treaty says "we will remain vulnerable to ballistic missiles with weapons of mass destruction from other states. That's unacceptable. Our president has decided that that is not a responsible policy, to remain vulnerable to ballistic missiles from countries like North Korea or Iran or Iraq."
He added that it is necessary "to develop the capability to defend against ballistic missiles not just with respect to the United States, but also with respect to our friends and allies and deployed forces."
Rumsfeld also reiterated that "these defense systems are not offensive. They don't hurt anybody.... The only one it's going to bother is someone who wants to lob a ballistic missile in on you. And we do not, as I said earlier, look at Russia as a country that has any desire to do that, nor do we have any desire to do it to Russia. So it ought to be a completely irrelevant thing from the standpoint of Russia."
The ballistic missile defense the United States is testing and doing research on is "modest," he said. "Its purpose is to deal with handfuls of weapons, not hundreds of weapons, let alone thousands of weapons."
Rumsfeld also pointed out that the United States has started to reduce its nuclear arsenal "We've announced the Peacekeeper is going to go out. We've announced we're going to take some Trident submarines out. President Bush has announced that he wants to reduce our offensive forces to the lowest possible number. We're going to do it regardless of what Russia does."
The Secretary said his visit to Russia is not "a negotiating meeting... I think of it as a meeting where we each come away with a much better understanding of our respective perspectives, and that the common effort is to say how do we mutually manage this relationship in a way that's healthy and satisfactory to the United States and to Russia."
The relationship needs to be "rearranged in many respects: politically, economically, and from a security standpoint. And that treaty is among the least important pieces of that new relationship. It is one small element of the security portion of the relationship between the United States and Russia."
The United States is "ready to talk on any level, on any basis, but our purpose is clear. We've got relatively new presidents in both countries. We have relatively new officials in the Cabinets of both countries. We have a long history of two countries that has changed. And this is a wonderful opportunity, it seems to me," Rumsfeld said.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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