Putin criticized the NMD program after discussions with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien in Ottawa, during a two-day visit to Canada.
The U.S. anti-missile program, if it works as hoped, would intercept and destroy ballistic missiles before they reach the United States. The program, now on hold but backed by the administration of President-elect Bush, is directed at protecting the United States from rogue states such as North Korea, Iraq or Iran.
Russia staunchly opposes the system, and Canada is wary of it, believing it could undermine the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty reached between the United States and the former Soviet Union in 1972, which prohibits deploying anti-missile systems.
President Clinton announced this year that Washington would not immediately go forward with the $30 billion program. Tests so far have failed to prove the system works.
Putin said the proposed system would "damage significantly the established system of international security, and undermine those developments that we have had, especially during the last decade."
Chretien said the issue was still "hypothetical because of the difficulties that the Americans have had last summer to make progress on the technological aspects of this."
Chretien and Putin had held discussions on the subject, "because we don't want anything to happen to destabilize what exists at this moment," he said.
"We don't know exactly if [Bush] will have a very different point of view than the one expressed by President Clinton, so at this moment it's a question of wait and see," he said.
But analysts believe the U.S. stance could change after Bush assumes office in January, with former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as vice president and former Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state. Powell said Saturday the NMD would be a priority for the new administration.
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