IVASHOV SAYS MOSCOW WON'T EXIT ABM ACCORD IMMEDIATELY EVEN IF
U.S. DOES. Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, who heads the
Russian Defense Ministry's Department for International
Military Cooperation, said Moscow has no plans to pull out of
the ABM treaty immediately even if it sees evidence that the
United States is doing so, ITAR-TASS reported on 12 March.
But Ivashov did say that a U.S. decision to go ahead with NMD
could return the world to "a Cold War state." He also
indicated that Russia's "eastern neighbors" are interested in
the kind of missile defense system Moscow has proposed for
Europe. Meanwhile, however, President Putin has reportedly
ordered the suspension of the dismantling of nuclear warheads
as called for under the Start II treaty, MSNBC.com but no
other agency reported on 11 March. PG
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