Clinton says Russia, US have big field for cooperation in ABM.

GATINEAU, Canada, March 31 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and the U.S. have an expansive field for cooperation in the sphere of antiballistic missile systems, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said here Tuesday.

She said it as she answered a question from Itar-Tass on whether the
U.S. plans observing the interconnection between strategic offensive
armaments and strategic defensive armaments that has been legally
stipulated in the new Russian-U.S. treaty on strategic arms reductions.
The U.S. Administration believes that both Russia and the U.S. as the
biggest nuclear powers should share responsibility for bolstering the
non-proliferation regime, Clinton said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated along with it that
"the new treaty on strategic armaments reductions contains a legally
binding package that pins down the interconnection between the strategic
offensive and strategic defensive weapons, in addition to the important
provisions for reduction of the strategic offensive potentials and for
building up control measures."
"The document incorporates all the necessary principles and mechanisms
ensuring the right of both sides to take decisions on how to enforce their
own security if this interconnection is broken," Lavrov said.
"Joint work on the antiballistic missiles system, which Secretary
Clinton spoke about will guarantee in the future, too, that this
interconnection will remain functional," he said.
"This will be possible if our U.S. partners and we ourselves proceed
from the agreements between Presidents /Medvedev and Obama/ specifying our
mutual willingness to cooperate in the area of risk reduction, beginning
with a joint analysis of risks," Lavrov said.
"We attach fundamental significance to this," he said. "If this is
done scrupulously then I have an optimistic outlook for the future."

.Moscow bank's supervisory board to discuss air terminal project.

MOSCOW, March 31 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
is expected to chair a session of the Supervisory Board of Russia's
Vneshekonombank /VEB/, one of the leading banking institutions in this
country, the government press service said.
The supervisors will consider the budget of the Development Bank for
2010, sum up results for 2009 and discuss participation in a number of
projects.
In part, the VEB does not rule out an increase of its share in the D
terminal, which the national flag carrying airline Aeroflot is building at
Sheremetyevo airport.
Also, the Supervisory Board may consider a prolongation of the credit
line the VEB opened for the Northern Machine-Building Plant, as well as a
prolongation of financing of a propylene factory being built in the
Siberian town of Tobolsk.
"Besides, the agenda of the meeting also includes a discussion of the
VEB's possible engagement in financing the construction of a power unit at
the Ekibastuz thermal plant in Kazakhstan," a source at the press service
said.
"Implementation of the project will facilitate development of
integration processes in the format of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization /SCO/," the source said.
One more issue members of the Supervisory Board will be expected to
pass a decision on is how and when the VEB should transfer its stakes in
other companies to the VEB Kapital company.
Government experts believe the latter measure will help raise the
efficiency of the companies in question and the projects they implement.

.Russian deputy premier to visit Moldova as part of CIS tour.

CHISINAU, March 31 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister
Igor Shuvalov arrives in Moldova Wednesday as part of a tour of CIS
countries in the capacity of chairman of the CIS Economic Council and
Russia's national coordinator for CIS affairs.
The main objective of the visit is to intensify integration processes
in the CIS, Moldovan government officials told reporters.
It is expected that Shuvalov and his Moldovan interlocutors will
discuss the future of the CIS and priority guidelines for its development.
Shuvalov is expected to inform the Moldovan leadership on Russia's
most immediate plans as a country holding a term of the CIS rotating
presidency, including a session of the organization's Council of Prime
Ministers.
"Russia has set a goal for itself to make CIS attractive for all the
member-states by offering them the prospects of integration at different
rates and in different formats," Moldova's Deputy Prime Minister Valeriu
Lazar told Itar-Tass.
"Moscow has offered interesting projects in the field of energy
efficiency, joint energy sector programs, infrastructure,
banking/financial integration, to CIS countries, along with a CIS free
trade zone and upgrading of the legal basis for regulating trade migration
on the territory of these countries," Lazar said.
He indicated that the Republic of Moldova has developed definite
interest in all of this and the Moldovan government will scrutinize all
the proposals to determine its own level of integration in the CIS.
Moldovan officials hope to discuss the prospects for expansion of
cooperation with Russia as they confer with Shuvalov.
Also, they will look at the possibility of the first full-scale
meeting between the Moldovan and Russian Prime Ministers, well-informed
government sources told Itar-Tass.
-0-kle