Thursday, January 26, 2012

NATO sees little progress in missile talks with Russia



NATO and Russia have made little progress in talks to cooperate on a US-led missile shield for Europe, and failing a deal may have to drop plans for a summit in May, NATO's secretary general said Thursday.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen held out hope that the former Cold War foes will reach agreement before the 28-nation alliance holds its own summit in Chicago on May 20-21.

"However, I also have to make it clear that we have not made much progress so far," he said.

"We have had a lot of talks. These talks will continue. Maybe we will not have a clarified situation until a few weeks before the summit," Rasmussen said.

"We still keep it as an option to have a NATO-Russia summit in Chicago, but if there's no deal, probably there will be no summit."