With Sarkozy's help, Russia backs off missile threat
Calls for nations to refrain from unilateral steps
NICE, France - President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia yesterday backed away from his threat last week to deploy missiles on borders of Europe, on the condition that President-elect Barack Obama take up a call Russia made with France to meet on European security by next summer.
The Russian leader, who threatened the United States just hours after Obama had won the US election last week, said at a meeting in Nice yesterday that all countries "should refrain from unilateral steps" before discussions on European security take place.
"If we share one home, we should get together and make agreements with one another," Medvedev added.
His statement was the strongest signal yet that the Russians might not follow through with their threat to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.
On Thursday, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, called Cold War rhetoric associated with the threat "stupid," unusually direct language in diplomacy.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who was host of the Nice meeting between Russia and the 27 European Union nations as EU president, helped Medvedev back off. The French leader supported the idea of talks on a new security architecture for Europe - a Russian proposal - and suggested they could be held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in June or July. The organization includes both the United States and Russia and spans much of the Northern Hemisphere, from Vancouver to Vladivostok.
The French president also made it clear that he wanted the United States to reconsider its missile defense plan, which involves radar and interceptors being deployed to Poland and the Czech Republic.
"Between now and then, please no more talk of antimissile protection systems," Sarkozy said, referring to the potential talks. The French president added that deployment of a missile defense system "would bring nothing to security in Europe."
Although he holds the rotating presidency of the EU, Sarkozy appeared to be moving beyond his official mandate, because the bloc has little power over defense matters. His intervention provoked immediate criticism from the Czech Republic, which takes over the EU presidency in January.
Alexandr Vondra, the Czech deputy prime minister, said he was "surprised" by Sarkozy's comments, which, he said, contradicted French statements on missile defense at the last meeting, held by NATO in Bucharest. He also said the comments exceeded Sarkozy's purview, as holder of the EU presidency, to speak for the bloc's 27 nations.
"It is my understanding that Mr. Sarkozy met Mr. Medvedev on behalf of the French presidency of the EU," he said by phone. "There was nothing in the EU mandate to talk about missile defense."
Diplomats saw the intervention by Sarkozy as another example of his hyperactive brand of diplomacy, which has given him a global profile but proved controversial within the EU.
Nevertheless the move to defuse the missile dispute helped smooth European relations with Moscow before the Washington conference on the global economy this weekend, which aims to reform the institutions that have governed global finance for 60 years.
Ties between the EU and Russia, one of the bloc's main sources of energy, have been particularly tense since the August war in Georgia and South Ossetia. On Monday, Europeans said they would resume talks with the Russians on a partnership deal because Moscow had complied with most terms of a negotiated cease-fire in Georgia.
But Medvedev's threat to station missiles exacerbated tensions. Moscow has refused to accept US assurances that its proposed missile shield in Europe was intended to protect NATO from "rogue" states such as Iran.
The sensitivity of the issue was illustrated by President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who told The Wall Street Journal that Russia had suggested deploying missiles in his former Soviet state to counter US moves.
For his part, the Russian president has been pressing his vague proposals for a new European security structure. Most EU nations have treated them with skepticism, and some see them as a direct attempt to undermine NATO. Participants said yesterday that the meeting underlined improved relations. The European trade commissioner, Catherine Ashton, said talk had been "robust, but very open."
"Presidents Sarkozy, Barroso, and Medvedev were very direct with each other," she added, "in the spirit of having a dialogue." 