Washington - Mr George W. Bush, the frontrunner for the Republican party presidential nomination, said yesterday he favoured going ahead with a national missile defence system even if it meant pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russian objections.
"I think we need to give Russia time to agree to amend the treaty," he said in an interview on an NBC television programme Today. "Otherwise we ought to abrogate the treaty."
President Clinton is currently scheduled to decide by July whether to build the national missile defence system, which would require changes in the 1972 treaty.