Russia FM: US Shield Is to Spy on Russia

[Purveyor]

(09-21) 13:41 PDT MOSCOW, Russia (AP) --

Russia's foreign minister suggested in an interview broadcast Friday that the United States wants to install an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe to spy on Russia, not to defend Europe from Iranian missiles as Washington claims.

Russia has responded angrily to U.S. proposals to base elements of a missile-defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, and proposed instead that the United States use the Russian-leased Gabala radar in the ex-Soviet state of Azerbaijan, which sits between Russia and Iran.

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"When our American partners say that Gabala cannot be an alternative to a radar in the Czech Republic, I understand them, because the Gabala radar cannot see Russian territory from its western borders to the Urals ... A radar in the Czech Republic can," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on state-run television.

The Gabala facility points south toward Iran. Elements of an anti-missile system placed in the Czech Republic and Poland would point east and presumably overlook the western half of Russia.

Lavrov repeated Russian arguments that building the missile-defense system will likely spark a new arms race.

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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/21/international/i134114D97.DTL