BRUSSELS. Dec 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov doubts that the United States will be able to deploy a national missile defense system.
"Nobody knows when, if at all, such a system will be built," he said at a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday, following a meeting of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council.
"The experience of the 1980s and the star wars program confirms this," Ivanov said.
"In strictly legal terms, the United States will leave the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in six months," Ivanov said. He reiterated the Russian position that this decision was erroneous. "We had offered another, more flexible approach," he said.