Lithuania worried by Russian missile threat

VILNIUS, July 5 (Reuters) Lithuania today said it was worried about Russia's threat to deploy new missiles in the neighbouring region of Kaliningrad.

Russia hinted yesterday it may station missiles in its most westerly region bordering EU members Poland and Lithuania, if the United States does not cooperate over plans for a European missile shield.

''It would be very bad if these plans were realised,'' Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas told Reuters, declining to elaborate further.

He told commercial radio that Lithuania would protest against any such plans and linked them with the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia.

Earlier Kirkilas told a conference on EU-Russia relations in parliament that dialogue with Russia was currently tough.

''The tense political situation over the approaching presidential elections creates conditions in today's Russia for a dialogue that could hardly be called the best, and raises the question of the kind of democracy being built in Russia,'' Kirkilas was quoted as saying by Baltic news agency BNS.

Parliament foreign affairs committee chairman Justinas Karosas said threats to deploy missiles should be read as a ''militaristic gesture'', which should not be tolerated.

Vasily Lihachev, vice-chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Russia's Federation Council, told the EU-Russia conference in Vilnius that Russia had a right to defend itself by deploying missiles in Kaliningrad, if needed.

''However, it does not mean that these missile will be deployed in the nearest future,'' Lihachev said.

At a meeting with US President George W Bush this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed an expanded plan for missile defence cooperation that would involve Russia and NATO sharing data about missile launches from ''rogue states''.

Putin said this would remove the need for the United States to proceed with its plan to locate elements of a planned missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Ivanov said yesterday that if the United States accepted the plan then Russia would not place missiles in its most westerly province of Kaliningrad.

Washington says the shield is needed to protect from possible missile attacks from states such as North Korea and Iran.

REUTERS SY BST2335