Russia seeks post-ABM strategic weapons framework with U.S.

PRETORIA - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said yesterday that his country would do its utmost to find a substitute for the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty the United States had decided to abandon. "We would not like this unilateral step of the United States administration to be to the detriment of strategic stability," Ivanov told a media conference in the South African capital.

"We would like to hope that the negative consequences of this abandonment will be minimal; and on our part, we will do our utmost to achieve that," Ivanov said after talks with his South African counterpart. He said the U.S. decision had undermined the legal foundation for the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as the entire system to control armaments.

Ivanov added that Russia would continue talks with the United States to hammer out a new framework for the two countries' strategic relationship. Ivanov and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week that they hoped to conclude a new strategic arms agreement in time for a visit to Russia next year by President George W. Bush.

Critics of Bush's decision to pull out of the Soviet-era treaty fear the move could spark a new arms race war between Asian nuclear players China, India and Pakistan.

Bush has long argued that the ABM treaty, clinched at the height of the Cold War, had outlived its usefulness and was impeding progress on Washington's plans to build an anti-missile shield against threats from "rogue states" like Iran, Iraq an North Korea.

Russia had pressed the United States to keep the treaty in place, upholding it as the bedrock of decades of disarmament efforts. But the latest good-natured summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bush at the U.S. president's Texas ranch failed to break the deadlock.