Russia and the United States are to sign an accord on tightening controls on the sale of portable anti-aircraft missiles at a summit in Bratislava later this month, a top Russian defense official said Tuesday.
“The document will be signed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,” the chief of the defense ministry’s international cooperation department, General Anatoly Mazurkevich, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
US and Russian Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin are to hold a summit in the Slovakian capital on February 24.
US ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said Tuesday that despite US concerns over democracy and the rule of law in Russia the two leaders had many areas of common interest to discuss.
“For us, for example, one of the major priorities of this meeting is the widening and strengthening of cooperation between the United States and Russia in the fight against the spread of weapons of mass destruction,” he told Interfax in comments translated into Russian.
“In particular we want to increase our efforts to make sure that weapons of mass destruction do not fall into the hands of terrorists,” Vershbow added, without commenting on the problem of portable missiles.
Last month, Israel and the United States both expressed disquiet about a possible sale of Russian-made surface-to-air SA-18 missiles to Syria, fearing that they could end up in the hands of the Damascus-backed Hezbollah Shiite militia.
But Putin insisted in a newspaper interview on January 28 that the proposed sale of so-called Igla portable missiles to Syria was still under discussion.
Civil aircraft remain virtual “sitting ducks” to terrorists who may have acquired US Stinger missiles or Russian-made portable missiles, military experts warn.
Beleaguered US forces in Iraq are also vulnerable to attacks on helicopters by Iraqi insurgents.
