A senior Russian security official said yesterday US plans to deploy an anti-missile system would undermine world stability and lead to a new arms race in outer space.
Speaking at a defence conference in Munich, Mr Sergei Ivanov, secretary of Russia's security council, offered talks on deep cuts in strategic nuclear arms if the new administration of US President George W. Bush abandons its plans.
"The destruction of the ABM Treaty will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race, including one in outer space," Mr Ivanov said.
Defence analysts say the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the US and the then Soviet Union would be breached by the new US system if it were to come into force.
"Restraining the so-called rogue nations - to use the American terminology - may be carried out more effectively from the point of view of both expense and consequences by means of a common political effort," Mr Ivanov said.
"The situation in North Korea is the obvious example because the situation a year ago seemed much worse than today."
He spoke a day after new US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, on a visit to Munich, reiterated Washington's intention to develop a missile shield despite objections from what Mr Ivanov said were 88 countries, including its European allies.
Mr Ivanov held out the possibility of substantial arms control cuts if Washington dropped its missile defence plans and preserved the ABM Treaty limiting Russia and the US to a single defensive missile site each.
US officials say the ABM treaty is an antiquated relic no longer essential in the post-Cold War world, an argument Russia rejects.
"The treaty created the possibility for predictability in the nuclear sphere and progress on the way towards nuclear disarmament not only for the USSR and the United States, but also the whole world," Mr Ivanov said.
A US aid worker was free yesterday after three weeks in captivity in Russia's rebel Chechnya region, saying he had been treated well but was eager to see his family.
"I feel fine, I am very happy that I am no longer a prisoner," television pictures showed Mr Kenneth Gluck telling reporters at the Khankala military base outside Chechnya's capital Grozny. He appeared to be in reasonable health and was shown using a satellite telephone to call home.
Mr Gluck, who ran the Chechnya operation for charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) was kidnapped by masked gunmen on January 9th near Grozny.