 Russian President Vladimir Putin casts his ballots at the polling station, 16 December, 2001. Voters in Moscow and in 11 other regions went to the polls on Sunday for local elections. Residents of Moscow and the Moscow region were to elect local parliaments, and three Moscow suburbs were to vote for their district councils. AFP/TASS Pool Photo |
"We were prepared for certain modifications of the treaty," Putin told the Financial Times in an interview given at the Kremlin just hours after the US announcement that it was pulling out of the treaty with Russia.
US President George W. Bush announced that the United States was pulling out of the treaty in order to deploy a missile defense system.
Despite opposition from Russia, China and key US allies to abandoning the cornerstone of Cold War arms control efforts, Bush said he had given Moscow the six months' formal notice the accord requires for withdrawal.
"We asked to be given the specific parameters that stood in the way of US desires to develop defensive systems. We were fully prepared to discuss (them). But nothing specific was given to us," Putin said in the interview.
"We heard only insistent requests for bilateral withdrawal from the treaty. To this day I fail to understand that insistence," he told the British paper.
He stressed that Moscow was responding to the US move in a "very calm, very constructive way".
President Bush "always does what he says, and in that respect he is a reliable partner," the Russian leader added.
On the matter of Moscow's bid for a full say in NATO affairs, Putin said he remained sanguine: "All disappointments and frustrations are born out of undue expectations".
In public statements last Thursday, Putin described the US decision to scrap the ABM treaty as a "mistake", while proposing a reduction in nuclear arms on the part of the Cold War rivals.
But Washington and Moscow cannot agree on the methods of reducing their nuclear stockpiles. The United States wants to do it by an informal accord, while Russia wants a properly drawn up treaty.
"We believe the accords we reach should be translated into legal treaty form. They should be transparent, they should be verifiable," he told the Financial Times.
Asked whether the ABM issue had harmed bilateral relations Putin replied: "If relations between Russia and the West, Russia and NATO, Russia and the US continue to develop in the spirit of partnership and even of alliance, then no harm will be done."
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