'Russia offers Obama olive branch'
Updated on 28 January 2009
Russia has halted a plan to retaliate against a proposed US missile defence shield by stationing its own missiles near Europe's borders, according to local reports.
The suspension of plans to deploy tactical missiles in the Western outpost of Kaliningrad, if confirmed, would show Russia is extending an olive branch to President Barack Obama after rocky relations under his predecessor.
"If true, this would of course be a very positive step," a spokeswoman for the US envoy to Nato, Kurt Volker, said.
Mr Obama spoke to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by telephone on Monday, their first contact since the US inauguration, and the two men agreed to stop the "drift" in their countries' relations, the White House said.
Mr Medvedev had said in November he was ordering the deployment of Iskander missile systems to Kaliningrad, which borders European Union members, Poland and Lithuania, in response to Washington's plan for a missile shield in Europe.
"The implementation of these plans has been halted in connection with the fact that the new US administration is not rushing through plans to deploy" elements of its missile defence shield in eastern Europe, said the unnamed official in the Russian military's general staff.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Russian military that the deployment was being suspended.
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