MOSCOW—The United States and Russia failed to settle their differences on U.S. plans to place a missile defence shield in Europe on Friday, as Washington rebuffed a request from Moscow to freeze the project.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, after talks in Moscow, clashed publicly on how to tackle Iran's nuclear ambitions, with Lavrov calling Washington's tough line on Tehran unhelpful.
Rice and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates brought with them proposals to soothe concerns the shield threatened Russian security. These included an offer to let Russia conduct confidence-building inspections of elements of the shield.
Lavrov, speaking at a joint news conference with Rice, Gates and Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov after five hours of talks, said those proposals needed more work and, in the meantime, Washington should halt work on the shield.
"We believe that to make the joint work of Russian and U.S. experts most effective, plans on deploying ... (the missile defence system in Europe) should be frozen," Lavrov said.
Rice rebuffed that, saying talks with Poland and the Czech Republic on siting elements of the shield—a radar station and interceptor missiles—on their soil would continue.
She added: "We will work during this time to address Russian concerns ... We believe that we can address those concerns and we are prepared to do it."
Earlier on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the stakes with Washington by warning that Moscow might pull out of a Cold War-era treaty barring bars Russia and the United States from deploying medium-range nuclear missiles.
'Unilateral Actions'
Putin will travel next week to Tehran, where he is expected to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suspected by Western powers of trying to develop a nuclear bomb. Putin says he sees no evidence of a bomb-making programme.
Speaking at the news conference, Lavrov said the U.S. policy of unilateral sanctions and not ruling out military action was not helping persuade Iran to be open about its nuclear plans.
"Such unilateral actions contradict our collective efforts and make them less effective," he said.
Rice responded by saying Washington would continue to impose financial sanctions on Iran that went further than United Nations measures, and would encourage others to follow its lead.
The Moscow talks took place against a backdrop of growing friction between the West and an increasingly assertive Russia seeking to restore its military might. Some observers say the atmosphere has echoes of the Cold War.
Meeting Rice and Gates earlier on Friday, Putin said Russia might pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty unless it was expanded to include limits on other countries' armaments.
The treaty was signed at the end of the Cold War to scrap U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles which, although they did not have the range to cross the Atlantic, could be used for nuclear strikes within Europe.
Pulling out of the treaty would theoretically restore to Russia the capability to strike European targets.
Defence analysts say Russia is reviewing the treaty because it feels threatened by growing arsenals in countries such as Iran, India and Pakistan and wants the missiles to counter that.
Simon Saradzhyan, an independent security analyst in Moscow, said Russia could also use the threat of quitting the treaty as a bargaining chip in its broader jockeying with the United States over strategic security.
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