Russia has received NATO's proposals for joint participation in the European missile-defense program, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
Moscow will analyze the proposals, he said, adding that it was in both parties' interests to neutralize common threats.
During a meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Moscow, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia "will be ready to participate in building such a system...on an equitable basis," Lavrov said.
Any cooperation between Russia and NATO in the missile-defense sphere will not be directed against any third party, Lavrov stressed.
Russian and NATO missile-defense systems are unlikely to be integrated into a single system, however, Rasmussen said.
These two systems should interact so that we have a common "security roof" through information exchange, he said - separate systems but within a common architecture of cooperation.
The NATO chief also proposed conducting joint missile-defense exercises with Russia.
Rasmussen previously proposed the creation of a missile shield from Vancouver to Vladivostok that would integrate the U.S. and NATO missile-defense systems with a role for Russia.
Russia has retained staunch opposition to the deployment of missile-defense systems near its borders, claiming they would be a security threat. NATO and the United States insist that the shield would defend NATO territories against missiles from North Korea and Iran and would not be directed at Russia.
President Dmitry Medvedev has campaigned for a pan-European security pact instead of the shield, although Western nations and NATO have dismissed the plan as irrelevant and unnecessary.
MOSCOW, November 3 (RIA Novosti)
