GORKI. Jan 24 (Interfax) - Russia is waiting for a NATO reply to the European missile defense offer and will have to deploy an offensive nuclear missile group if no agreement is reached, President Dmitry Medvedev told Russian Permanent Representative to NATO on Monday.
"Our [NATO] partners must realize that we do not want to play games with NATO but we need to give reliable protection to Russia. This is the duty of the president and other civil servants. There must be no joking; we expect a direct and clear answer from our NATO partners about the place of Russia [in the European missile defense system]. We will give an appropriate response to the problem with or without NATO," he said.
Medvedev recalled the alternative he suggested in the latest state of the nation address. "We will either agree on certain terms with NATO and develop a compatible missile defense system or we will fail to reach an agreement and have to take a number of unpleasant steps, such as the deployment of an offensive nuclear missile group," he said.