You're reading: Lavrov: Russia not ready to set up missile defense shield together with U.S.

Moscow, January 22 (Interfax) - Russia is not ready to build a missile defense shield together with the United States in line with earlier proposed partnership approaches.

"As far as missile defense issues are concerned, we have told the U.S. and NATO that it is necessary to start everything from scratch – to jointly analyze the origin and types of missile proliferation risks and threats," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow on Friday, Jan. 22.

"We are not ready to simply trust someone else’s analysis and proposals to counter such threats on the basis of this analysis. But they have simply told us: these are the systems we plan to develop, and you will have to contribute your radars. This is not the kind of approach we are ready to support," Lavrov said.

The Russian and U.S. presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, agreed to conduct joint analysis of missile proliferation risks, he said.

Similar measures were mentioned in documents adopted at a session of the Russia-NATO Council in December.

"We are ready for this work. But the result of this joint analysis is unclear to me. We will have to take a look at the situation surrounding all missile proliferation risks, not only those posed by Iran," Lavrov said.