Pierre Lellouche: Anti-missile shield must be conceived alongside Russia

Secretary of State for European Affairs Pierre Lellouche stated on Friday, in Bucharest, that the anti-missile shield issue the Americans want to locate in Eastern Europe must by discussed 'between Europeans' primarily and gave assurances that the system is not destined to anger Russia.

'Europe's protection against some eventual missile attacks - from proliferating states - and we see that, unfortunately, the number of countries developing ballistic missile, long-range missiles, is on the rise, and they also have the capacity to develop more or less in secret this nuclear energy technology, is unfortunately a real issue, valid for the entire Europe and I would say for Russia, as well. We share the same concern because we live on the European continent', said Pierre Lellouche.

The French official gave assurances that the system is defensive, meant to raise a shield in front of the proliferating states.'I would like to primarily see Europe interested in and debating this issue at its level. Moreover, I would say that a defensive system against proliferating countries is not meant to affect our Russian neighbor. On the contrary, a shield must be conceived together with Russia and I would like to see us working together in this problem because it is of interest to all of us', said Lellouche.

According to Agerpres, in October 2009, the United States of America received the agreement of Poland and the Czech Republic to take part in the anti-missile shield project.At February-start, Romania stressed that its participation is translated into accepting terrestrial interceptors on its territory, as one of the components of an anti-missile shield system.