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Obama Offers Russians Deal on Missile Shield

Prez offers to nix Europe defense base in exchange for help disarming Iran

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 3, 2009 1:39 AM CST

(Newser) – President Obama has offered to cancel a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Russia will help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, administration officials tell the New York Times. The agreement, outlined in a secret letter delivered to Moscow last month, would remove a major source of Russian-American friction. Russian leaders have signaled they are prepared to consider the proposal.

The offer, part of the new administration's effort to "press the reset button" on relations with Russia, is aimed at giving the nation an incentive to join a united front against Iran, according to officials. The deal does not offer Russians the opportunity to say, "We’ll try and therefore you have to suspend" the missile plan, said a senior administration source. "It says the threat has to go away."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

Soviet-made jet fighters stand in front of a shuttered Polish Air Force base, the proposed site of a new missile defense base, in Redzikowo, northern Poland. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz, File)

A street vendor demonstrates a set of Russian dolls depicting Barack Obama and George Bush in St. Petersburg, Russia, earlier this year. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sits in a cockpit of a Sukhoi SU-30MKE fighter while visiting the Irkutsk aviation assembling plant last week. (AP Photo/ RIA Novosti )

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I told the Russians a year ago that if there were no Iranian missile program, there would be no need for the
missile sites.
- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates

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Obama Offers Russians Deal on Missile Shield