LISBON, Portugal — Russia was receptive but stopped short of accepting a historic NATO invitation Saturday to join a missile shield protecting Europe against Iranian attack.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to involve technicians in development plans but did not make a commitment if it becomes operational and warned that Russia might decide against joining the U.S.-led effort if it doesn’t feel it is being treated equally as a partner.
“Our participation has to be a full-fledged exchange of information, or we won’t take part at all,” he told reporters after the announcement by NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
President Barack Obama won NATO support a day earlier to build the missile shield over Europe, an ambitious commitment to protect against Iran’s increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles and a nuclear program the West says is aimed at producing a bomb.
Obama praised Russia’s decision Saturday, saying it “turns a source of past tensions into a source of potential cooperation against a shared threat.”
Rasmussen said, “We could cooperate one day in shooting down missiles.”
Two key unanswered questions about the missile shield - whether it will work and whether Europeans can afford it - were put aside for now by NATO members in the interest of celebrating the agreement as a boost for NATO solidarity.
Medvedev addressed those issues point-blank, saying, “It is quite evident that the Europeans themselves don’t have a complete understanding how it will look, how much it will cost. But everybody understands the missile defense system needs to be comprehensive.”
NATO says the cost of the system would be relatively cheap when spread across the entire 28-nation alliance - about $260 million over 10 years. But critics contend that’s a big price tag for Europe, suffering from a debt crisis that has led to higher unemployment while forcing governments to raise taxes, cut services and slash civil servant salaries amid austerity drives for many nations.
Obama said the missile system “responds to the threats of our times. It shows our determination to protect our citizens from the threat of ballistic missiles.” He did not mention Iran by name, acceding to the wishes of NATO member Turkey, which had threatened to block the deal if its neighbor was singled out.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Saturday that NATO met his nation’s demands and that the agreement “was within the framework of what we wished. We are pleased about this.”
France, which had had reservations that the missile shield plan might come across as a substitute for nuclear deterrence, said it, too, had signed on after its concerns were answered.
“France would have refused a unilateral project disconnected from reality, or costly - or if it had been for that matter hostile to Russia or had been a substitute for nuclear deterrence,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
He noted that no country was specifically mentioned as the object of the missile defense, but added, “France calls a cat a cat: The threat of the missiles today is Iran.”
Under the arrangement, a limited system of U.S. anti-missile interceptors and radars already planned for Europe - to include interceptors in Romania and Poland and possibly radar in Turkey - would be linked to expanded Europeanowned missile defenses. That would create a broad system that protects every NATO country against medium-range missile attacks.
Medvedev on Saturday joined a meeting of NATO’s 28 leaders, a gesture that marked a sea change for a partnership created after World War II to defend Western Europe against the Soviet threat.
The allies opened their summit by agreeing on the first rewrite of NATO’s basic mission, formally called its “strategic concept,” since 1999. They reaffirmed their bedrock commitment that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. In that context, thesummit in Lisbon, Portugal.
agreement to build a missile defense for all of Europe is meant to strengthen the alliance.
What remains in conflict, however, is the question of the future role of nuclear weapons in NATO’s basic strategy. The document members agreed to Friday says NATO will retain an “appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities” to deter a potential aggressor. Germany and some other NATO members want U.S. nuclear weapons withdrawn from Europe.
On the topic of a U.S.-Russia arms treaty, Obama was backed by Rasmussen, who told reporters that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, called New START and signed in April by Obama and Medvedev, would improve security not only in Europe but beyond.
The treaty limits each side’s strategic warheads to no more than 1,550, from 2,200 allowed previously, and sets a maximum of 800 land-, air- and sea-based launchers.
The pact also would establish an inspection system.
Obama said failure by the Senate to soon ratify it could jeopardize improving relations with Russia and send a mixed signal to Iran about the strength of the international front against its nuclear program.
He blamed the partisan climate in Washington for the delay and said inaction on the pact would leave “a partner hanging” at a time of better cooperation among the United States, its NATO partners and Russia.
Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to press his case.
“A failure to ratify New START would be a dangerous gamble with America’s national security, setting back our understanding of Russia’s nuclear weapons, as well as our leadership in the world,” Obama said.
Republicans led by Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona say they won’t consider the pact until the Obama administration budgets adequate money for the nation’s nuclear arsenal and the laboratories that oversee them. Kyl says he needs assurances that the remaining nuclear arsenal is modernized and effective.
The administration has pledged $85 billion to maintain the nuclear arsenal over the next 10 years, in an attempt to address Kyl’s concerns.
Ministers from six European countries - Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Norway and Bulgaria - on Saturday urged U.S. lawmakers to ratify the stalled nuclear treaty, saying failure to do so would be a setback for European security.
“Don’t stop START before it’s started,” Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov said.
Republicans have said the pact needs more work and have rejected the administration’s hopes of bringing it to a vote in the lame-duck session before the end of the year.
The ministers insisted that Obama administration officials, some of whom stood at the back of the room as they spoke, did not put them up to the appeal.
“I’m the one who initiated this initiative,” Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen said. The idea, she said, was to “at least make the Republican Party [aware] of how important this is.” Information for this article was contributed by Alan Clendenning, Robert Burns, Slobodan Lekic, Julie Pace, Jamey Keaten, Harold Heckle and Anne Gearan of The Associated Press; by Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post; and by Nicholas Johnston and James G. Neuger of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 15 on 11/21/2010