MOSCOW. March 11 (Interfax-AVN) - The North Atlantic alliance is interested in engaging Russia in setting up a European missile defense system, a Moscow military diplomat told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"NATO members are paying primary attention to the southeastern and southwestern directions when they address the establishment of a European missile defense system. It is from that direction, alliance experts expect, that short or medium range missile strikes could be delivered on Europe," the diplomat said.
"As the U.S. and NATO need a radar that could be located as close as possible to Iran, from where such a strike could be delivered, they are especially interested in the Russian radar in Azerbaijan, which is really controlling the direction they are concerned about," he said.
"NATO is very interested in setting up a European theater missile defense system together with Russia," he said.
The joint Russian-NATO command post exercise involving theater missile defense, which is underway in the U.S., will help further converge their positions on this issue, the diplomat said.
"Experts of the alliance speak sincerely about the danger coming from Iran that possesses medium- and short-range missiles. That is why U.S. experts have started closely studying possible use of territory of several Central and Eastern European nations for housing missile defense facilities," he said.
"In particular, there are plans to deploy an early warning radar in the region. While discussing such a possibility, NATO experts aim primarily at Turkey and also possibly at Bulgaria and Romania," the diplomat added.