Subject: HK leader warning on democracy

From: "Maxine Huerta" <[email-masked]>
Date: , 14 Oct 2007 20:31:19 +0300

The U.S. military estimated Thursday that 15 civilians were killed by coalition forces in the operation targeting senior leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq. The military said the terrorist group put the victims in harm's way.Initial reaction from Lavrov and Serdyukov, though, was less gracious."We may decide someday to put missile defense systems on the moon, but before we get to that we may lose a chance for agreement because of you implementing your own plans," he told Rice and Gates in Russian, according to an Associated Press translation."We hope that in the process of such complex and multifaceted talks you will not be forcing forward your previous agreements with Eastern European countries," Putin said.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe diplomatic discussions, maintained that differences were narrowed but progress was incremental and might not produce ultimate understandings.The recent rise in tensions between Turkey and the United States has led the military to increase its planning for alternatives, two military officials with direct knowledge of the ongoing assessment said."The principal thing to which we did not agree today is the deployment of anti-missile elements which have an anti-Russian character and which are to be placed in Europe," he said.The United States has repeatedly rejected Russian demands to freeze U.S. negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic, and Rice did so again Friday, said three senior U.S. officials present at the sessions with Rice, Gates, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.Rice said the ideas that she and Gates presented are "conceptual at this point" and would be handed to experts to consider further.A spokesman for Putin, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in a conference call that "some of them are quite interesting and the Russian side will start examining this proposal."