World

Medvedev Urges Obama to Rethink Missile Shield Plans

by Dave Keating | November 13, 2008 at 05:09 am

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Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said he will call of his threat to deploy missiles in the Kaliningrad region, a Russian excave within the EU, if Barack Obama calls off the Bush Administration's plans to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. An Obama spokesperson has said the president-elect hasn't made any decision yet on whether to continue the missile defense plan.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to reconsider plans to deploy a missile-defense shield in Europe, saying Russia's ready to drop its retaliatory measures in response.

Medvedev said his threat last week to deploy short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian region wedged between Poland and Lithuania, was a ``proportionate'' response to the ``unilateral'' U.S. missile-shield project promoted by President George W. Bush.

Russia is ready to ``reverse this decision'' if the new U.S. administration ``reconsiders all the consequences of the move to station missiles and radars and its effectiveness,'' Medvedev said in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, published today on the Kremlin Web Site.

Obama's office on Nov. 8 said the president-elect had made ``no commitment'' to the planned missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia has warned that the proposed shield, which the U.S. says is necessary to protect against attack by ``rogue states'' such as Iran, would threaten its security. The dispute has contributed to a post-Cold War low in U.S.-Russia ties.