US-Russian talks failed Friday to produce any agreement on US missile defence plans, with high-level Moscow talks agreeing only to continue their dialogue in half a year's time, DPA reported. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US would move forward with plans to build a missile defence system in eastern Europe, while Russia upheld its threat to withdraw from Soviet-era arms control treaties if the system was a "unilateral" US project. Rice and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates were in Moscow to "two- plus-two" talks with Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov and Anatoly Serdyukov to allay Russian fears that the system imperilled its nuclear deterrent. Russia will take measures to eliminate the missile threat if it does not assume a "global" character, Lavrov told reporters following the talks, Interfax said. "We would like to avoid that," Lavrov said. The US side had reviewed Vladimir Putin's proposal to allow the use of Russian missile tracking facilities in Azerbaijan and southern Russia, but said these could not substitute for the system in eastern Europe.
