A U.S. expert team on Tuesday visited a Russian radar station in Azerbaijan, which was offered for share by Kremlin in exchange of a proposed U.S. missile defense system in central Europe.
A meeting of the experts from Russia, the United States and Azerbaijan was "fruitful" and rich in content, Itar-Tass quoted Deputy Chief of the Russian Space Forces' Staff Alexei Yakushkin as saying.
The panel meeting discussed the practical aspects of the possible joint use of the Gabala radar station by Russia and the United States. They will inform their governments before an Oct. 10 meeting of the foreign and defense ministers in Moscow, he said.
"We believe that there are opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation to deal with the real and growing threat of ballistic missiles," said U.S. Missile Defense Agency Deputy Director Patrick O'Reilly after the visit.
"This was a technical level visit to give our experts an opportunity to get a tour of the facility and a briefing on its capabilities. There were no formal negotiations or consultations," O'Reilly said.
The U.S. experts had a chance to examine the radar station and evaluate its potential, he said, noting that he had invited Russian experts to visit the U.S. missile defense center in Colorado and witness another test of the missile defense system.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush at the G8 summit on June 7 that the United States jointly use the Gabala radar base in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, to replace its plan to station missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.
Source: Xinhua
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