ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—The U.S. held out the prospect of limited missile-defense cooperation with Russia, including a future deal to exchange missile-launch information, seeking to ease long-standing concerns in Moscow about a planned U.S.-led system to protect European allies.
But the information sharing proposals outlined by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a speech at the Kuznetsov Naval Academy here put a spotlight on the gap that remains between the U.S. and Russia over the extent of possible missile-defense cooperation between the two nuclear powers.
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Associated Press
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks about Libya as he briefs reporters on board a military plane en route to St. Petersburg, Russia.
In addition to holding out the possibility of sharing launching information, Mr. Gates said missile-defense collaboration between the U.S. and Russia could include setting up a joint data-fusion center and sharing information about U.S. missile defense plans and exercises.
"We've disagreed before, and Russia still has uncertainties" about the U.S.'s so-called phased adaptive approach to missile defense in Europe, Mr. Gates said at the start of a two day visit to Russia.
The U.S. system calls for integrating sea- and land-based missiles defenses in and around North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in Europe to help defend them against the threat of ballistic missiles, mainly from Iran.
Russia believes the system could blunt its own nuclear deterrent.
Mr. Gates, who will travel to Moscow Tuesday for high-level security talks, played down Russian concerns, saying the U.S. system poses "no challenge to the large Russian nuclear arsenal."
At a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Lisbon in November, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed uniting the missile shield being built by the 28 allies with Russia's own missile-defense system.
The U.S. and its NATO allies rebuffed Mr. Medvedev's suggestion, saying the issue should be looked at by the countries' technical experts.
Diplomats said Mr. Medvedev's proposal went way beyond what the alliance envisages, which is cooperation and information sharing between two systems rather than a single system.
The U.S. wants access to data from radar sites based on Russian territory, which could expand the European-based system's ability to identify and shoot down any incoming missiles.
But the U.S. and its NATO allies want to stay in control of the system and don't want to give Moscow the power to decide when missile defenses can be used against prospective targets, diplomats say.
Mr. Gates told reporters during the flight to Russia that cooperation between the U.S. and Russia has "come quite a distance."
"We obviously have our differences. We have our concerns with some of the human rights issues in Russia, questions of law," Mr. Gates said. "But overall, I would say there has been really extraordinary progress."
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