Russia's missile defense talks with West yield no results

Russia's talks with the United States and NATO over missile defense in Europe have stalled and not yielded any results, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. "Our contacts both with the U.S. and within the Russia-NATO Council bear no results," said Lavrov. "Our partners avoid by all means to answer a logical, extremely simple question: if the U.S. plans of the global missile defense were not targeting Russia, as they insist, why can't we make clear judicially-binding guarantees that the system does not target Russia and its strategic potential?" Lavrov said. Moscow cannot but doubt its partners' frankness and willingness to stick to the agreements reached at NATO's Lisbon summit a year ago, Lavrov was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying. He noted that Russia is going to raise the question of missile defense during top-level contacts with Western leaders. "The situation is serious. During the upcoming meetings between Russian and U.S. presidents and leaders from other leading Western countries, we are going to raise that problem because we would like to make particular decisions on what to do further," Lavrov said. Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said Monday that Lavrov would meet NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Dec. 8. Moscow has long opposed the deployment of NATO missile defense facilities near its borders. It wants legally binding guarantees from the United States and NATO that the missile defense shield is not targeting Russia.