BAKU, Azerbaijan - Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said Friday that Azerbaijan is ready to consider proposed joint U.S.-Russian use of a radar facility in the country as part of a missile defense system.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made the proposal Thursday to President Bush as an alternative to U.S. plans to deploy missile-defense elements in Eastern European countries, a plan to which Russia bitterly objects.
"At this time, Azerbaijan's position, which is supported by the United States and Russia, is that it's necessary to start consultations in a two- or three-sided format. I can say that Azerbaijan is ready for such consultations," the foreign minister said at a briefing.
Azerbaijan is a former Soviet republic along the Caspian Sea that borders Russia and Iran.
The United States says the missile defense elements that it wants to place in Poland and the Czech Republic are aimed at intercepting possible missile attacks from Iran and North Korea.
Putin contends that putting the system in Eastern Europe would mean it could be used against Russia's missiles, thereby undermining the balance of power in Europe.
Putin said last week that Russia would aim its missiles at Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War if the U.S. plan goes ahead.
Russia already uses the radar station in Azerbaijan.
With the world's second-largest Shiite Muslim population, secular Azerbaijan has concerns that Iran's Shiite theocracy could spread and some analysts suggested that Iran would be angered by U.S. use of the radar facility.
But Mammadyarov said the proposal "can only bring more stability into the region because it can lead to more predictable actions in the region."
In Brussels, NATO's top diplomat gave a cautious response Friday to Putin's suggestion that part of the proposed for U.S. anti-missile defense system be based in Azerbaijan.
"It's a bit early to judge if an Azeri radar could be the answer to the threat," said Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "It's a bit close to the rogue states we are discussing."
Despite his caution, de Hoop Scheffer welcomed the talks between Bush and Putin at the G-8 summit in northern Germany, which diplomats say marked a thaw in relations after weeks of mounting tension of the missile defense shield, which led to Putin threatening to point Russian warheads at Europe for the first time since the Cold War.
"That they talk to each other is good," he told a conference organized by the Security and Defense Agenda, a Brussels-based think tank.
