Over 80 countries have officially confirmed the participation of their representatives in the international conference on arms-free space as an arena of peaceful cooperation in the 21st century, due to take place in Moscow on April 11-13, Interfax was told at the Foreign Ministry on Friday.
The conference is being organized at the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is timed to the 40th anniversary of the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin.
The organizers have not yet received a formal reply to the invitation from U.S. official agencies, sources said.
Questions related to missile defense, in particular U.S. plans to deploy an NMD system, are on the agenda, sources said.
The Moscow conference “is not planned as a confrontational event or a negotiating forum, but as a kind of brainstorming.”
Earlier the Foreign Ministry said the conference “will mull a wide spectrum of questions related to legal aspects of regulating military operations in space, the results and prospects of advancing manned space programs, and the economic and applied use of space, in particular for the purpose of stable development.”
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