Rumsfeld pushes U.S. missile plan

Rumsfeld: Hoping to win allies for the U.S. defence plan

TURKU, Finland -- U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been seeking support for America's missile plans among Nordic and Baltic defence ministers.

On the final stop of a seven-nation European tour, Rumsfeld met with the defence ministers of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Speaking in Finland on Saturday, Rumsfeld said an effective U.S. missile defence system cannot be built within the constraints of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, a U.S. official told the Associated Press.

He repeated calls made to NATO defence chiefs and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov this week to join the Bush Administration in "a new architecture," including the controversial strategic missile defence plan.

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Rumsfeld also assured the Baltic and Nordic nations they will be included in the administration's consultations on taking a new approach to security and defence, which he called a "new framework of deterrence."

A U.S. defence official told Reuters Rumsfeld was pressing ministers at Saturday's meeting to realise that the ABM treaty, which forbids strategic missile defences, was an outdated product of the Cold War.

America's NATO allies have been lukewarm to the U.S. plan to build and deploy a defensive system capable of tracking and shooting down intercontinental ballistic missiles in space, in part because such a system would require amendment or abrogation of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty.

Ivanov told reporters on Thursday after meeting with NATO ministers, including Denmark and Norway, that Russia remained opposed to changes in the ABM treaty.

But Ivanov conceded that he agreed with Rumsfeld on new threats, including terrorism, and said he had accepted an invitation from his U.S. counterpart to visit Washington.

Rumsfeld is scheduled to fly back to Washington later on Saturday at the end of the six-day trip.