Bush says Russia should cooperate on missile defence

Sogia, June 11: US President George W Bush today called on Russia to cooperate over missile defence and offered Serbia potential rewards from the west if it agreed to make Kosovo independent.

Bush addressed two of the most crucial security problems facing Europe in Bulgaria, the last leg of a European tour that has been dominated by mounting tensions with Russia over a planned US missile defence shield and Kosovo.

The US President proposed setting up a panel of joint experts after Russian President Vladimir Putin last week offered to establish a joint anti-missile base.

"There is a process where we can cooperate, share information in a very transparent way, which I think would be beneficial and I would hope that the Russians would see the meetings as beneficial," Bush told a press conference.

The United States insists the shield that it wants based in Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed at knocking out the threat from rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea. Russia says it believes it is the only target and Putin has threatened to aim his missiles at Europe if the shield is deployed.

Bush also reaffirmed that he wanted to act on the plan for "internationally-supervised independence" proposed by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari but said there could also be benefits for Serbia.

"As we seek independence for Kosovo we have also got to make it clear to Serbia that there is a way forward, maybe in Nato, maybe in the EU, and definitely in better relations with the United States," Bush said.




Source : www.zeenews.com