A senior US and NATO commander has said that the USA's new approach to missile defence may include use of the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan.
Adm. James G. Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of the US European Command, told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that he supported the idea of partnering with Russia as a way to enhance security against shared missile threats.
'First, it would create a zone of cooperation with Russia [from a military standpoint]; secondly, it could technically add to the early warning time because of the location of the system; and thirdly, it creates confidence-building measures between ourselves and the Russians,' the admiral said.
Moscow earlier offered the use of the Gabala radar station, which it leases from Azerbaijan, and the Armavir radar station in Russia's Krasnodar Territory as alternatives to previous US plans for a missile shield in Central Europe, but Washington has been reluctant so far to accept the proposal.
Stavridis described the new phased-in approach to European missile defence as 'timely and flexible', and said it would provide 'capability that we can step up and be adaptive'.
In his prepared statement for the Armed Services Committee, the admiral also outlined NATO's view on overall military cooperation with Russia.
'Working with Russia is about balance and seeking to find the potential for cooperation, while maintaining an honest and open dialogue about all aspects of our relationship, including where we disagree,' the statement said.
'We at European Command are ready to pursue military-to-military communication, engagement and even training and operations with Russia where and when appropriate.'
The head of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, Anatoly Tsyganok, said that the proposal to use the radar could be considered a serious change in Washington's position, 'which first claimed that the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan does not meet the necessary technical requirements'. He said that Moscow had offered the United States use of the radar station in Armavir, but when Washington learned that the American military experts would not enjoy diplomatic immunity on the base it rejected the proposal.
Adm. Stavridis' statement came a day after the publication in Der Spiegel magazine of an open letter from German defence experts Volker Rühe, Klaus Naumann, Frank Elbe and Ulrich Weisser proposing that Russia should be accepted into NATO. They said that the confrontation of East and West had long since been over, and the alliance and Moscow had common interests.