Putin ups ante in US-Russia missile shield row

OSLO, Apr 26 (Reuters) A row between the United States and Russia over US plans to build a missile shield in eastern Europe escalated today when President Vladimir Putin declared a moratorium on a key European arms treaty.

Putin's announcement to the Russian parliament came hours before NATO and Russian officials were due to discuss a project US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said was no threat to Moscow, dismissing such suggestions as ''purely ludicrous''.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he would ask Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to explain Putin's decision to suspend the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) and rejected Putin's accusation that NATO was ignoring it.

''I expect Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov to explain the words of his President,'' de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference in Oslo ahead of a meeting between NATO foreign ministers and their Russian counterpart in the Norwegian capital later today.

''The NATO allies attach great importance to the CFE treaty and are of the opinion that it is important that the adapted CFE treaty will be ratified. There are a number of hurdles in the way, the Istanbul commitments,'' he added.

He was referring to NATO's longstanding insistence that Russia withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia and Moldova before its members ratify a revised version of the CFE.

The CFE Treaty was negotiated in the months after the Cold War among the then-22 member states of NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries with the goal of achieving verifiable reductions in conventional military equipment. It was adapted in 1999.

PUTIN BROADSIDE Putin's move to freeze the CFE treaty was the latest broadside from Moscow against the US plan to base missile interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic.

Putin accused NATO allies of ignoring clauses in the CFE, but also said the U.S. shield plan had made matters worse.

''(NATO countries) are ... building up military bases on our borders and, what's more, they are also planning to station elements of anti-missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic,'' Putin said.

''In this connection, I consider it expedient to declare a moratorium on Russia's implementation of this treaty -- in any case, until all countries of the world have ratified and started to strictly implement it,'' Putin said in his annual address to both houses of parliament.

''I propose discussing this problem in the NATO-Russia Council, and, should there be no progress in the negotiations, to look at the possibility of ceasing our commitments under the CFE treaty,'' Putin said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier dismissed as nonsense today concerns in Moscow that the shield could pose a strategic threat to Russia.

''The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it,'' she told a news conference.

The United States had cited progress in winning sceptical allies round to the project, with alliance diplomats saying there was a growing awareness in NATO that Washington would move ahead with the shield anyhow.

However, German Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper in an interview published yesterday that at least six unnamed allies including Germany, raised doubts about the project at a NATO meeting last week.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere also said his country was sceptical in a joint news conference with Rice.

''I am still in listening mode and I am still to be convinced about the threat,'' he told reporters today.

REUTERS JS PM1821