U.S. Wants Defense Cooperation as Russia Tests Weapon

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. wants cooperation with Russia on missile programs, the State Department said, as the government in Moscow announced it successfully tested a weapon that it claims is immune to all defense shields.

The U.S. can't confirm the Russian report, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said a briefing in Washington yesterday. ``We would hope that the Russians would want to cooperate with us on the issue of missile defense,'' he said.

A strategic cruise missile was fired yesterday from a mobile ground-based system in the southern Astrakhan region near the Caspian Sea, Interfax cited Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying.

Tensions have risen between the U.S. and Russia over a U.S. plan to base interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic as part of a system defending against long-range missile attacks from countries such as Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday the U.S. action risked turning Europe into a ``powder keg.''

``Nothing we have proposed or planned is in any way, shape or form a threat to Russia's strategic capabilities and certainly shouldn't be viewed that way,'' Casey said, according to a State Department transcript.

The defense system involves only 10 interceptors and is ``designed to defend against a limited attack by a rogue nation, including a nation like Iran,'' he said. ``This is a threat that's there, not only for the United States and its European allies, but also for the Russians as well.''

Russian Defenses

The Russian test of a high precision missile shows the country has a new tactical and strategic system, Ivanov said, according to Interfax. Such missiles may be deployed in the defense program by 2009, he added.

The weapons are ``capable of overcoming all existing and future missile defense systems,'' he said. ``That is why, from the point of view of defense and security, Russians can look into the future without any worries.''

The U.S. deployment will spark a ``new spiral of the arms race,'' Putin said in Vienna last week. He dismissed American concerns that Iran could threaten the U.S. and Europe. Iranian missiles now have a maximum range of 1,100 miles (1,700 kilometers) and by 2012 they may have missiles with a range of 1,500 miles, too short to justify a missile shield, he said.

The dispute with the U.S. comes at a time of growing strains between Russia and seven eastern European countries that were once within the Soviet Union and are now members of the European Union.