New York Times - 06.19.2001

 

 

The New York Times

Putin Says Russia Would Counter U.S. Shield

By PATRICK E. TYLER

MOSCOW, June 18 — President Vladimir V. Putin said today that if the United States proceeded on its own to construct a missile defense shield over its territory and that of its allies, Russia would eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal with multiple warheads — reversing an achievement of arms control in recent decades — to ensure that it would be able to overwhelm such a shield.

Mr. Putin made his comments in a meeting with American correspondents that lasted nearly three hours tonight and was organized last week to give him an opportunity to explain his views after his summit meeting with President Bush in Slovenia on Saturday.

The Russian leader emphasized that though he is buoyed by Mr. Bush's pledge that Washington and Moscow will work cooperatively in coming months to investigate the full ramifications of Mr. Bush's vision for a new security framework that includes missile defenses, Russia is also very alert to unilateral American actions.

And in response to comments made Sunday in Washington by Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that the United States would proceed with missile defense with or without Russia, Mr. Putin said Russia would not threaten or try to prevent American actions, but would "augment" its nuclear forces without regard to treaties that now require the elimination of multiple warheads.

"When we hear statements that the programs would go with us or without us, well, we cannot force anyone to do the things we would like them to," he said. "We offer our cooperation. We offer to work jointly. If there is no need that such joint work is needed, well, suit yourself."

However, Mr. Putin added, "we stand ready" to respond to any unilateral American action, even though Russia does not see an immediate threat from a missile shield.

"I am confident that at least for the coming 25 years" American missile defenses "will not cause any substantial damage to the national security of Russia," he said. But he added, "We will reinforce our capability" by "mounting multiple warheads on our missiles" and "that will cost us a meager sum." And so, he said, "the nuclear arsenal of Russia will be augmented multifold."

He said both the Start I and Start II treaties would be negated by an American decision to build missile defenses in violation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. Such a step would eliminate verification and inspection requirements, he said, reviving an era in which Russia would hide its abilities and intentions.

Mr. Putin said Russia was ready to move expeditiously on talks with Mr. Bush's top aides, but he said he believed that the two sides first needed to discuss whether serious threats actually existed or might emerge in the future, then determine what missile defense technologies might be brought to bear against them, and then determine what provisions of the ABM treaty came into conflict with such a system.

Speaking in the Kremlin library at the round conference table where he met President Clinton last year, Mr. Putin also stated for the first time that Russia had taken an interest in ensuring that China's strategic concerns are addressed in the debate.

China has a much smaller nuclear missile force and fears that its national nuclear deterrent would be nullified by missile defenses.

"One must be very careful here," he said. "The transparency of our action is very important, lest none of the nuclear powers would feel abandoned or that two countries are making agreements behind their backs."

Asked if he had made a commitment to China, he replied, "there is a commitment to preserve the balance of security that we have now in the world as a whole and in this sense, China is an important element, and not only China." Mr. Putin said the United States should bear in mind China's strong economic potential and its growing ability to respond to national security threats.

He said what concerned him most was that a unilateral American deployment of missile defenses could "result in a hectic, uncontrolled arms race on the borders of our country and neighboring countries."

Mr. Putin said he reported to the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, by telephone today the results of the meeting and Mr. Bush's message about a cooperative approach to examining threats to international security. Mr. Jiang and Mr. Putin met last week in Shanghai with Central Asian leaders to form a security and trade cooperation pact.

Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Putin joked that he had tried to speak some English with Mr. Bush, but he said he feared that Mr. Bush had only pretended to understand him.

He also spoke with pride about his record as a career K.G.B. officer, pointing out that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger had once told him that "all decent people start out in intelligence," as Mr. Kissinger did. Then Mr. Putin added, referring to President Bush's father, who served as director of central intelligence, "The 41st president was not working in a laundry, he was working at the C.I.A."

While Mr. Putin directed his most pointed remarks at the comments of Ms. Rice, he praised a statement by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that the United States was not seeking the "destruction" of the ABM treaty. He said he had "taken due note" of Mr. Powell's assertion that Washington was seeking "effective but limited" defenses against potential ballistic missile threats from so- called rogue nations.

In identifying with Mr. Powell's formulation, Mr. Putin appeared to be signaling a hope that the Bush administration could be persuaded to work within the ABM treaty to develop the kind of limited defense system that Russia itself proposed.

Mr. Putin acknowledged that he and Mr. Bush had talked in detail about Iran, and Russia's growing arms relationship with its leaders. He said Russia had a "complex relationship" with Iran, but he praised President Mohammad Khatami as a "very moderate and very worthy partner" who was trying to bring Iran out of isolation.

He said Russia was committed not to supply nuclear or ballistic missile technologies to Iran, but would continue to sell defensive arms to Tehran, and he complained that the United States was guilty of "unfair competition in the arms market" by insisting that these sales should cease. He revealed that he had provided Mr. Bush with the names of American companies who have recently been in Iran offering "large scale" cooperation, which he did not specify.

Still, the Russian leader said he took seriously the concerns of both Israel and the United States about the sale of dangerous technologies. If Russian individuals or companies continue secretly to provide Iran with illicit arms and technologies "to make money — we will try to terminate these activities." He then proposed that Russian and American intelligence agencies step up their cooperation to counter the trafficking in dangerous technologies, "irrespective of the country of origin."

Mr. Putin called on the United States to take a more precise position on how Moscow and Washington might cooperate to fight Islamic extremism emanating from the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

He pointed out that terrorist camps in Afghanistan, known to both United States and Russian intelligence services, had trained terrorists responsible for the deaths of both Russian and American citizens.

"We have to define a position on the Taliban," he said. "We need to know what to do about them."

Mr. Putin said he had spent some time in his discussions with Mr. Bush responding to American criticism of Russia's military campaign in the rebellious republic of Chechnya, the Kremlin's campaign against the country's only independent television network, NTV, and Moscow's pressure on neighboring Georgia.

On Chechnya, Mr. Putin, without mentioning the name of his predecessor, laid responsibility for the catastrophe in Chechnya on Boris N. Yeltsin's 1995 decision to "de facto" recognize Chechnya's independence, paving the way for the Islamic extremism there and the rise of warlords who, he said, divided the republic into criminal fiefs.

He did not address allegations that the military campaign against the Chechen rebels that precipitated his own political career in 1999 had led to widespread assaults on civilians and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

But he said he asked Mr. Bush what the American leader would have done if terrorist bands "from down south" had seized "half the state of Texas" and used it as a base of terrorism.

Mr. Putin said it was "not a fundamental question to us whether Chechnya becomes independent or stays within Russia," but rather that Russia's goal was to ensure that it never again serve as a "launching pad for terrorist acts." His complaint about Georgia was couched in similar terms. He asserted that when Mr. Yeltsin was still in office, he won the agreement of President Eduard A. Shevardnadze of Georgia to allow Russia military forces to attack Chechen rebels taking sanctuary on Georgian territory and that Mr. Shevardnadze reneged.

"This is the only problem we have with Georgia," Mr. Putin said, defending his decision to impose a strict visa regime on Georgian citizens as necessary to stanch the flow of Chechen rebels across the Georgian frontier.

On the sensitive issue of freedom of the press in Russia, Mr. Putin provided no details about his own role in fostering the Kremlin-backed takeover of the country's largest independent television network. But he accused Vladimir Gusinsky, the media baron and NTV founder, of "garnering about $1 billion" of state funds in building the network, which Mr. Putin said he thought would never be paid back.

And he said it might take a number of years for the Russian economy to sustain a full spectrum of economically independent media organizations, and he added, "I am very confident that without a free media, we cannot have a normal democratic society."