MIKE ECKEL, MOSCOW

Russia's Foreign Minister said yesterday that the true reason the US wants an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe is not to defend Europe from Iranian missiles but to spy on Russia.

Sergey Lavrov made the comments in an interview yesterday on state-run television, just days after American technical experts visited the Russian-leased Gabala radar in the ex-Soviet state of Azerbaijan.

Russia has responded angrily to US proposals to base elements of a missile defence system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Moscow's counterproposal is for Russia and the United States to use the Gabala radar. US officials have said the radar's technology is outdated and emphasised that even if they were to use the Russian radar, it would not replace the US elements.

"When our American partners say that Gabala cannot be an alternative to a radar in the Czech Republic, I understand them, because the Gabala radar cannot see Russian territory from its western borders to the Urals a radar in the Czech Republic can," Lavrov said.

"Any action calls for a counteraction. This doesn't even have any sort of ill thought; this is the law of the genre. This is the obligation of militaries, the obligation for the commander to guarantee the maximally effective answer to any threat," he said.

Lavrov repeated Russian arguments that building the missile defence system will likely spark a new arms race.-AP