EON

Heiligendamm, Germany – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday offered the United States joint use of a radar station in Azerbaijan, saying this ensured better protection against an Iranian missile threat than US plans for a missile shield in Central Europe.

Russian and US diplomats said Putin made the proposal during bilateral talks with US President George W Bush at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Heiligendamm.

Putin suggested that the US and Russia could jointly operate the radar station in Azerbaijan which is currently rented out to Moscow.

If the proposal was accepted by Washington, Russia would not need to retarget Europe in response to the US plan to station elements of a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to the diplomats.

For his part, Bush described his talks with Putin as “open and constructive.”

“We will continue to talk about missile defence in the coming weeks,” said Bush.

The US president told reporters he wanted a “constructive and strategic dialogue” with his Russian counterpart.

Earlier, Bush went out of his way to take a conciliatory stance on Russia, saying that the missile defence dispute with Moscow was not something “we ought to be hyperventilating about.”

The US leader insisted that the US missile defence system was aimed at so-called “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea. “Russia is not an enemy of the US,” he underlined.

US-Russia relations have deteriorated rapidly since Putin denounced US “unilateralism” in February this year.

Since then the Russian leader has vented his anger over the US missile defence plan and threatened to withdraw from a key European security pact.

Putin sent alarm bells ringing this week by saying Russia would retarget Europe in retaliation over the missile defence shield.

Washington and Moscow also disagree over a United Nations plan for internationally-supervised independence for the breakaway Serb province of Kosovo.