Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday accused the United States of backtracking on proposals for missile defense cooperation and rebuked Washington on other divisive security issues, AP reported. Sergey Lavrov's remarks set a tough tone for an expected meeting Friday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and follow Russian parliamentary elections that strengthened President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly criticized American foreign policy. Underlining a deep rift over U.S. plans to deploy missile defense installations in former Soviet satellite states of Central Europe, Lavrov detailed Russian allegations that Washington has gone back on compromises promised when he met with Rice in October. The United States has withdrawn a proposal for constant Russian monitoring of planned U.S. missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, and has rejected the idea of jointly evaluating threats that would trigger activation of the system, he said. «There has been a serious rollback from what we were told,» Lavrov said. The United States says the installations in the two nations _ now NATO members _ would counter a looming Iranian threat. Moscow disputes Washington's view of that threat and says it believes the real aim is to weaken Russia.
