Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she was concerned about comments made Monday by Russian First Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Mikhailov who said Russia would defend itself against any new US system.

Albright said she thought the comments "are an overreaction to our desire to deal with what we believe is a common problem," she said.

Washington wants to be able to build an anti-missile defense system to protect itself from "rogue states," but building such a system would violate the 1972 treaty with Russia and Moscow is steadfastly opposed to amending the pact.

"We have a joint interest in dealing with that problem and so I don't want anybody, whether here or in Russia, to be reviving old problems when we should be trying to solve new problems," Albright said.

Mikhailov said that if the United States built a national missile defense system in violation of the ABM treaty, Russia would defend itself by improving its own nuclear arsenal.

"Our arsenal has the capability," he said of Russia's ability to break through an eventual US defense shield, adding that Russian technology "could and would be used if the US pushes us."

At the White House, spokesman Joe Lockhart said that despite Mikhailov's warning, talks on amending the treaty -- which began in June but have yet to bear any results -- would continue.

"We believe that we are moving forward in a constructive way," Lockhart said.

"This is going to be a process that will take some time. I don't expect that there is only one meeting where we expect to get closure on ABM and missile defense issues," he said.

Lockhart said Mikhailov had apparently ignored the fact that Washington wanted the system only to ward off the threat from rogue states and not Russia, and repeated offers to share the program's technology with Moscow.

"Should we move forward and deploy our missile defense system we will work closely with the Russians on the arms control and ABM implications of that," he said.

Lockhart added that in direct contacts with Moscow the United States has had "good discussions" with Moscow.

"From time to time there are comments out there," he said. "At this point we prefer to talk directly with them as we have done rather than through ... the media."

At the United Nations, US representative to the General Assembly disarmament committee Robert Grey said the United States would withdraw two draft resolutions on nuclear disarmament because they could be exploited to score points in a dispute with Russia.

The resolutions "address important and relevant issues ... and would have been particularly timely this year," Grey said.

But, he told the committee, they "ran the risk of being subjected to a campaign of amendment designed to introduce contention over the ABM treaty in every possible way."

One of the resolutions, on compliance with arms limitation and disarmament and non-proliferation agreements, comes before the committee every two years. A spokesman for the US permanent mission to the United Nations said its purpose was to enable member states to put themselves on record.

The other resolution is an annual text reporting to the UN on progress made in bilateral nuclear arms negotiations with Russia, the spokesman said.

Grey was replying to a draft resolution submitted to the committee by Russia, China and Belarus which expressed support for efforts to prevent "any attempts to undermine or circumvent the ABM Treaty." Meanwhile, US military officials said Tuesday that they are studying two sites in Alaska and and North Dakota for the possible construction of a national missile defense system.

Two environmental impact studies have been launched in the two states and public hearings on possibly making them sites will be held in the regions, Department of Defense spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.

Washington wants to be able to build an anti-missile defense system to protect itself from "rogue states," with a first phase placing some 100 interceptors in Alaska that would be operational by 2005.

"The biggest advantage to Alaska is that it does provide 50-state coverage," Bacon said.

"There are advantages and disadvantages to each site ... Obviously, when you're building a national missile defense system, you need to protect the entire nation," the spokesman added.

Bacon said that building a site in Alaska would require an adjustment to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) signed with Russia in 1972.

Moscow recently rejected a Washington proposal to offer technical cooperation on missile systems in exchange for revisions to the pact. It has also warned that if the United States was to build such a system it would respond by improving its own nuclear arsenal.

"If we were to build in North Dakota, where we had a site some years ago, in that respect it would not require an adjustment to the treaty," the spokesman added.

"Both these sites have to be reviewed in the course of assembling the information that the president needs to make a decision about whether or not to proceed with the construction of a national missile defense program," he said.

"No final decision will be made until these environmental impact statements are completed, as well as a whole series of other tests and studies that are ongoing."

US-Russian negotiations on the 1972 treaty -- the cornerstone of Cold War nuclear deterrence -- begun in June ended in failure in September without any substantial agreements reached.

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VIA WASHINGTON
US Shoots Down ABM Treaty?
Los Angeles (AFP) October 3, 1999 - A new US missile defense system successfully destroyed an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile Saturday in the first major test of a program that threatens to rankle relations with Russia and China. The test over the Pacific Ocean marked the first time that scientists had successfully collided one missile into another while both were travelling through space at high speed.