He was speaking as a senior Russian general revealed that Moscow is preparing a missile shield for Europe.
The United States says the missile shield would protect against rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.
Now it may be that President Putin thinks he can get long-term leverage as America discusses its anti-missile shield.
America's European allies have concerns of their own about the proposed missile shield.
This raised the prospect that America could construct a limited missile shield for itself while still observing the treaty.
But John Pike, a weapons analyst with the GlobalSecurity.org research group, said the missile shield is not yet fully operational.
But it is unlikely that Israel and the Gulf Arab states can forge a seamless missile shield across a vast region.
If London were threatened, a British government would have little difficulty in persuading its taxpayers to spend heavily on a missile shield.
The United States is seeking support for its controversial missile shield, which drew praise from some nations and criticism from others on Wednesday.
The Pentagon has also said that the fourth phase of Eastern Europe missile shield deployment, if re-started, would not take place earlier than 2022.
The Russian Defense Ministry maintains that the U.S. missile shield program would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty signed by Russia and the United States.
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M, can slip through any anti-missile shield that America might erect.
Among those to support Bush's plan was Australia, which said it would allow the U.S. to use joint military bases in Australia for the planned missile shield.
The Bush administration had cited the perceived nuclear threat from Iran as one of the key reasons it wanted to install the missile shield in eastern Europe.
The United States and NATO have begun to field an anti-ballistic missile shield in the southern and eastern parts of Europe to protect from such a threat.
In the closing years of the Clinton era, there was something close to a consensus on the need to develop an anti-missile shield, although there were disagreements about its scope.
According to Deputy Foreign Minister Segei Ryabokov, Russia knows everything it needs to know about the composition of the U.S. missile shield in Europe, he told reporters in Moscow on Friday.
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During the call, Bush reportedly confirmed he would visit South Korea in October and discussed the U.S. plan for a missile shield with Kim, said South Korean presidential spokesman Park Joon-young.
Critics believe the missile shield would spell an end to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, and some European leaders agree with Russian warnings that it could start a new arms race.
Seoul has remained neutral on the idea, and Bush is said to have called South Korean president Kim Dae-jung for about 15 minutes last week after making public his push for the missile shield.
Hence the suggestion by Moshe Arens, until recently defence minister, that an anti-missile shield should be extended to friendly countries nearby: Jordan or the Palestinian Authority (neither of which has expressed any interest) or Turkey.
The Kremlin is especially upset over plans to install components of the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, both former Soviet Bloc countries that are now members of NATO and the European Union.
Mr Putin headed for Italy, where he and Giuliano Amato, the prime minister, readily agreed that, as good Europeans, they must work together to stop the Americans doing anything rash about their plans for an anti-missile shield.
Growing support in the United States for anti-missile defences was highlighted by the recent vote of a Senate committee to back a bill that would mandate the building of a national missile shield for the United States as soon as technically possible.
Is the U.S. right to scrap plans for a missile defense shield in Europe?
However, Nato's leader said Russia's alternative to the US missile defence shield had its weaknesses.
We have a -- for many years, a missile defense shield for Europe and for the United States was a theoretical exercise.
The Defense Department has not announced what will be discussed, but Cartwright is the point man for the missile defense shield program.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Tuesday gave his government's strongest endorsement yet of the missile defence shield, boasting that opponents were now coming around to Australia's viewpoint.
It has agreed to host the radar component of a proposed NATO nuclear missile defence shield, a project that is aimed mainly at Iran, with which Turkey has a tricky relationship.
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