Socialist MEPs call US missile shield "nonsense"

By Staff
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MOSCOW, May 29 (Reuters) The leader of the Socialist group in the European Parliament attacked the US plan to build a missile shield in Europe as ''complete nonsense'' today.

Martin Schultz said his party had found common cause with Russia over its opposition to the shield after a delegation met a foreign policy aide of President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

''I was able to understand the Russian sentiments on this, it is complete nonsense. It is our common evaluation of this situation,'' Schultz told a news conference after meeting Putin's adviser on European Union relations, Sergei Yastrzhembsky.

The United States says it wants to locate elements of a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic to protect from missile attacks by what it calls ''rogue states''.

Russia has said the plan is a threat to its national security.

Politicians in some European countries, including members of NATO, have also expressed their misgivings.

The leader of Germany's Social Democrats, which govern in a grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, said in a newspaper interview on Tuesday the United States must be ready to consider abandoning the shield plan.

Schultz and his colleagues said their decision to oppose the missile shield was taken independent of Russia's position. He leads a group of 218 MEPS from 25 countries in the 785-seat parliament.

Schultz headed a delegation of 10 MEPs for preliminary talks in Moscow on establishing co-operation with the pro-Kremlin left-of-centre 'Just Russia' political party.

Schultz criticised police crackdowns in past weeks on anti-Kremlin protesters in Russia and said police failed to protect gay rights activists from nationalists who kicked and punched them during a weekend protest.

He described the police behaviour as an ''inappropriate reaction'' towards legitimate demonstrators.

REUTERS NC BD1953

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