Australia was more positive, saying that it shared U.S. concerns over potential missile threats from some governments. A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia would allow the use of joint military bases such as the Pine Gap facility in central Australia for missile shield communications. Much of the apprehension elsewhere in the world focused on Bush's declaration that a 1972 arms-control treaty was outdated. Bush said in his speech that the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, which sets strict limits on testing and deployment of anti-missile systems, was a Cold War relic. Today's threats, he argued, come from hostile nations like Iraq, not from Russia.
Supporters view the ABM treaty as a cornerstone of international arms control agreements.
Like China, Russia had no immediate comment on the speech. Afghanistan, international terrorism, the Indian prime minister's visit to Moscow and a range of bilateral and international issues would figure high on the agenda of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's visit to India from Thursday. During his three-day stay, Ivanov will meet prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and hold discussions with external Affairs and defense minister Jaswant Singh and Vajpayee's principal secretary and national security advisor Brajesh Mishra. He is also likely to call on President K.R. Narayanan. Lamba said preparatory work for Vajpayee's visit to Moscow, planned for the last quarter of the year, would be done during Ivanov's visit to Delhi.