(8 Jun 2007) HEADLINE: Rice tells AP: Russia offer won't change U.S. missile plans
CAPTION: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says The United States will pursue its own plans to put a missile defense in Eastern Europe despite Russian suggestions to locate it outside the region. (June 8)
[Notes:ANCHOR VOICE]
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admits the U-S was caught off guard when Russian President Vladimir Putin made an unsolicited offer on how the U-S can alter its missile defense program.
SOT Rice
I think we have to take a look, it was a bit of a surprise to be frank.
Rice's comments were recorded during an interview with The Associated Press on Friday in New York.
The conversation centered on the development Thursday in Germany when Putin sprang his idea on President Bush during a side meeting at the G-8 summit.
His idea is for Russia and the U-S to share a Soviet-era radar tracking station in Azerbaijan.
Moscow has been upset with Washington's original plans to put missile interceptors and a radar system in Poland and the Czech republic.
However, Rice says as of now the U-S is sticking to that plan.
SOT Rice
One doesn't choose sites for missile defense just out of the blue you have to a sense of what the missile defense system is trying to do and where the optimum place to place radars, you know it's geometry and geography on how you intercept a missile.
Rice did, though, call the offer a positive development and Bush says he looks forward to talking to Putin again about the idea later this summer.
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