Posted on 09/09/2007 1:51:52 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. plans to site parts of a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic are "politically dangerous", former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Saturday.
"From my point of view the missile defense system is politically dangerous. It is perceived as an attempt to isolate Russia, which is not in Europe's political interests," said Schroeder, who is a personal friend of President Vladimir Putin.
"It is Germany's responsibility ... to persuade the United States to abandon these plans," he said at a round table discussion with political analysts and journalists.
Schroeder, who formed his friendship with Putin as chancellor, was promoting a Russian edition of his book "Decisions -- My Life in Politics", which lavishes praise on the policies of the Kremlin chief.
The United States wants to base interceptor missiles and a radar system in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying it needs protection against missile attacks from what it terms "rogue states" like Iran and North Korea.
Russia has reacted furiously, saying the plan will upset a delicate strategic balance between major powers and poses a threat to its own security. Schroeder said the plan was not in the European Union's interests either.
"It is presented as though the plans are the business of the countries involved and the Americans. But they concern Europe as a whole," Schroeder said, adding the EU should brush aside "narrow-minded nationalistic interests".
Schroeder, who now chairs a German-Russian consortium building a major gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, is one of only a few Western politicians to publicly side with Russia on many political issues.
Although trade and investment are booming, diplomatic relations between Russia and the European Union have deteriorated sharply over the past year.
This is partly because of Russia's squabbles with the Union's new members such as Poland, which were once part of the Soviet bloc and are now wary of Moscow's rising influence.
Schroeder was visiting Russia three months ahead of a parliamentary election and six months before a poll to elect a successor to Putin. But he was tight-lipped when questioned about Putin's plans for the presidential succession.
Schroeder appeared at the book presentation ceremony with First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a longtime Putin ally who also chairs state gas giant Gazprom.
Medvedev, who wrote an introduction to the Russian edition of Schroeder's book, is seen as one of the possible candidates to succeed Putin. Putin has not yet said whom he will endorse as his successor.
Putin has served two consecutive terms and is barred from standing again next year, though the constitution would allow him to run a third time in 2012.
He is irrelevant.
As Lantos (yes even he is right at times) eloquently put it, Schroeder is Putin’s whore.
I wouldn't be one bit surprised to see his name on some Oil for Food list somewhere.
he must have graduated from the billy clintoon’s school, i can’t stay away from a reporter, look at me! look at me!
“Communist calls U.S. missile plan dangerous”
The fact that missile defense is seen as anti-Russian is itself a telling admission. I’ve always been inclined to give Putin the benefit of the doubt. But Putin and his toadies all see missile defense as “isolating” Russia. Thats either paranoid nonsense or a back-handed admission of a truth we need to think about long and hard.
I see the “Fatherland” has their own Jimmah Carter.
Schroeder must be stripped of his German and EU citizenship.
It can’t be more apparent he has sold his soul, gravitas and credentials to the Kremlin petro oligarchs.
Sounds like Schroeder has become the German version of Jimmah Carter.
“He is irrelevant.”
Yep, Germany’s own Jimmy Carter.
Ciphered: "Be damned "sovereign mindset"!
We are a global community.
Schroeder wasn’t relevant when he was relevant.
And just why should I care when some ingrate German lefty makes yet another asinine statement?
The EU is comprised of highly industrialized countries. It is time for them to pick up their own defense tab. Sixty years li long enough fo the U.S. to carry the burden.
Shut up you little worm.
How the hell is that little dirt bag, now, that like the Clinton's, he doesn't have to get his money delivered in bags from a back alley?
SPECULATION is rife in Germany that outgoing chancellor Gerhard Schroeder may be offered a high-paying job by his close friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin....theage.com.au - October 13, 2005Bela Anda, Mr Schroeder's spokesman, denied the rumours outright. Germany's biggest-selling paper Bild carried the story, as did the Moscow Echo.
Mr Schroeder paid a short visit to Mr Putin last Friday. Ms Anda called such rumours "groundless speculation" but there is intense speculation about what a man who likes the high life, £5000 ($A11,600) Brioni suits, Kristal champagne and Cohiba Havana cigars will do with the rest of his life.
After days of silence former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has fired back at critics demanding from him to give up his new job at a German-Russian pipeline project.UPI (via spacedaily.com) - Dec 13, 2005"Politicians and the media have spread much nonsense recently," Schroeder told Tuesday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich-based daily. "I am only 61 years old; I want to work and not stay at home and get on my wife's nerves."
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