Russia to respond to US missile defence in Europe without hysteria

Moscow, Feb 21 (UNI) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today declared Moscow will respond to the US plans to deploy missile defence system in Europe without any hysteria, saying it would not send the arms race spiraling anew.

''We will respond, of course, but without any hysteria. We can't afford being entangled in an arms race once again,'' Mr Lavrov said in an interview to the government-controlled daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, published today.

''I am convinced, our response, will not provoke any new spiral in the arms race. We have gone through this experience previously,'' he said.

''We just have no right to put our economic and financial wellbeing at risk after all the efforts the President, the government and the nation have made to lay a foundation for our future,'' he stressed.

On strategic stability in Europe, Mr Lavrov said, ''In experts' estimate, if potential threats coming from Iran or North Korea, are indeed meant, missile defence elements should be located in a different place, not where proposed now.'' ''If they appear precisely in Poland and the Czech Republic, military analysts will have to do the elementary job of calculating the trajectories of missiles to be intercepted by these systems. And we must state here that these facilities would be quite applicable for intercepting missiles launched from Russia,'' the Russian Foreign Minister said.

''This does not mean we are planning to launch these missiles.

But the entire philosophy of the missile defence treaty was to do away with the temptation to be the first to strike,'' he said, pointing out ''since protection from the first strike would be guaranteed, as American strategists hope, another temptation arises - to be the first to launch a strike, aware that a chance has emerged to go unpunished.'' UNI