Brussels, June 11 (Interfax) - Russia expects NATO to respond to its concerns about missile defense and is ready to take military-technical measures to compensate for the absence of political and legal guarantees of its security, said Russian permanent envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin.
"Any answer will be good for us – either a substantive and serious or a dry and unfriendly one. We just need clarity. Based on this clarity, we will compensate for the absence of political and legal guarantees by our military-technical guarantees that we will provide ourselves," Rogozin told Interfax in commenting on outcomes of Wednesday negotiations between Russian and NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
The missile defense problem concerns Russia’s strategic security, said Rogozin, who also leads a presidential interagency working group for interaction with NATO on missile defense.
"We cannot rely on assurances and backslapping today. I would like to stress once again: the matter concerns the Russian Federation’s strategic security, its sovereignty and independence. You don’t joke with such things," Rogozin said.
"Whatever position NATO assumes, if the alliance does not answer our legitimate questions, we will be gradually losing interest in this," he said.
Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told his NATO counterparts at the Wednesday talks what Russia will do if it fails to reach an agreement on missile defense with the alliance, Rogozin said.
"He explained very clearly that, if we fail to reach an agreement and eliminate the absolutely natural concerns and apprehensions about the appearance of a new military machine near our borders, especially if it threatens our strategic nuclear potential, we will have to deploy a set of military-technical measures," he said.
Rogozin described the talks in Brussels as very helpful.
"The NATO officials, primarily the Americans, should understand that protection of the Russian Federation’s national interests in light of the deployment of the U.S. missile defense infrastructure in Europe is an issue that represents a common position of all Russian agencies serving under the guidance of the Russian president. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov reaffirmed this once again while addressing his counterparts at a closed meeting of the Russia-NATO Council," he said.
