Topic: U.S. Adviser Tries To Reassure Russia

Philadelphia Inquirer
February 23, 2007

MOSCOW - National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley sought yesterday to ease Russian concerns about U.S. intentions, saying he did not consider a fiery speech by President Vladimir V. Putin to have been a sign of confrontation, and reiterating reassurances about U.S. missile-defense plans.
Washington and Moscow have been trading heated criticism over issues, including U.S. plans to deploy elements of a national missile-defense system in former Soviet satellites in Europe.
Hadley repeated assurances that planned missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic would be aimed at countering a potential threat from Iran, and constituted no threat to Russia. "It is not directed in any way against Russia," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
- AP