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Respected Mr. President,
YABLOKO is an oppositional democratic party, we in opposition to the political course of the present leadership of our country.
We regard Russia – US relations from an angle which is absolutely different from the view of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. And in our view, development and strengthening of these relationships represent an extremely important task, and, by the way, failure to solve this task will accelerate degradation of the Russian democracy.
That is why in the beginning of this decade our party put forth the idea of strategic partnership, and our party leader Grigory Yavlinsky formulated the idea of a joint ABM system at the end of 1990s.
Discussion of strategic partnership between our countries has been held for a long time, however, little has been done for realization of this goal. Today we have a favourable moment for filling the idea with real actions. Cooperation in solution of international and global problems in many fields is on the agenda now. We think that such cooperation could become a real alternative to the neoimperialist projects and approaches that are today “en vogue” with the Russian political and military elite.
Whether Russia’s global ambitions are realised via cooperation with the West or a confrontation largely depends on the USA at present. Not only the West, but also Russia’s democracy, which can not develop in the suffocative atmosphere of anti-Western and anti-American policies and confrontation with the outside world on all the fighting lines, will lose from the confrontation.
Unfortunately today another fighting line has emerged. I mean the plans of the US BMD in Europe. Let us once again think over whether the project is reasonable. We should also note here that Iran is not against this project, on the contrary, as soon as the discussion on the projects subsides, Iran reminds us of itself with missile tests or militant declarations. Why does it behave in such a way? Iran realises that the project of stationing BMD in Europe represents an apple of discord between Russia and the USA. That is why such a project plays into Iran’s hands. The stronger is the confrontation between the USA and Russia, the more confident Iran feels and the stronger it is. And the closer is the interaction of the nuclear super powers, the more ready Iran is for concessions.
This example illustrates too well the need of a joint Russian-American BMD. Such a BMD system is the most efficient project of all possible BMD systems, as it unites over common goals the two largest world nuclear potentials.
Certainly this implies a qualitatively new level of trust between our countries. However, the result of such trust would be extremely powerful. What can be better, from the point of view of security, than a situation when two nuclear super powers entrust each other protection of their citizens from each other?
Everyone can recall what an abyss of distrust the USA and the USSR had to overcome for a victory over fascism, which was the largest challenge to the mankind in the 20th century. Today we have to overcome a lesser distrust so that Russia-US strategic union in the field of security could protect the world from the nuclear threats of the 21st century.
Once again I would like to stress that the project of a joint BMD was proposed by Russia’s democratic opposition and not by the military bureaucracy or authoritative country leaders.
I am asking you Mr. President to once again engage independent experts from both the countries for careful examination of this issue.
See also:
Activities
Russia's ABM Initiatives
Russia-US Relations
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