Nato ministers to focus on missile defences

Fighting in Afghanistan, mounting tension in Kosovo and American plans to build anti-missile defences in Europe will dominate talks among Nato foreign ministers in Norway.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to lead a new effort to persuade Russia to soften its opposition to Washington’s missile defense plans when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov joins the Nato talks in Oslo.

Russia has been highly critical of the proposed installation of radar detectors in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland which Washington says would defend Europe and North America from the threat of ballistic missile attack from Iran or North Korea.

“If we see that the facilities pose a threat to Russia’s security, the facilities will be objects for plans of our forces, whether strategic, nuclear or otherwise,” Gen. Yuri Baluyevksy, the Russian military’s chief of general staff said in Moscow.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had gone to the Russian capital on Monday in an attempt to ease Russian concerns with an offer to work together to neutralise possible missile threats.

Despite Russia’s public rebuff of the US offer, Washington’s envoy at Nato headquarters was hopeful Moscow could be persuaded to co-operate.

“This is something we believe we can and should do together; it’s a threat we share, that’s the spirit that we will go into Oslo and into the Nato-Russian council with,” said US Ambassador Victoria Nuland.

Russia is also at odds with Western allies over Kosovo, suggesting it may veto a proposed UN resolution that would grant independence to the Serbian province.

The two-day Nato meeting is expected to underscore allied support for the UN plan and stress the determination of the 17,000-strong allied peacekeeping force to face down any threat of violence from either the Serbs, or Kosovo’s separatist Albanian majority.