Yorkshire CND - Azerbaijan is ready for joint U.S.&Russian use of radar for missile defence

8 June 2007
Azerbaijan is ready for joint U.S. & Russian use of radar for missile defence
Baku Today

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=45801

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Azerbaijan welcomes Putin's missile defence plan

Azerbaijan on Friday welcomed President Vladimir Putin's proposal for joint US-Russian use of a radar on its territory for missile defence, saying it would improve regional security.

"Azerbaijan is ready for such negotiations... This will bring more stability to the region, where the situation will become more predictable," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov told reporters.

Mamedyarov said Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic on Iran's northern border, could hold either bilateral or three-way talks with Russia and the United States over the proposal.

US-Russian use of the radar base, which is currently used by the Russian military, would not harm Azerbaijan's relations with Iran or any other country, Mamedyarov added.

The United States has announced plans to set up a radar in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland to counteract a potential threat of attack from Iran and North Korea.

Russia has said it suspects the US project is aimed against its own territory.

10 June 2007
Russia expects missile defence proposal to be taken seriously
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Monsters and Critics

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article...

Moscow - Russia expects the United States to seriously consider its proposal for the common use of its missile defence site in Azerbaijan, President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy advisor Sergei Prichodko told Russian television on Sunday.

Putin wanted to end confrontations over this issue, Prichodko said.

The US now had to consider whether it was not better to 'create something new together and to talk about how we can approach the issue openly and without prejudice,' he added.

Putin had proposed to US President George W Bush the joint use of a radar site Russia rents near the city of Gabala in Azerbaijan.

The site is 150 kilometres north of the Iranian border.