US-Russian negotiations held on Friday failed to reach any agreement regarding the US missile defense plans. The only issue on which the parts agreed on was their next meeting for talks on the same subject. The dialogue will continued in half a year's time.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made it clear that the United States will carry on with their plans of building the missile defense system in Eastern Europe, while the Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to break one of the nuclear arms treaties that ended the Cold War if the anti-defense system will be a "unilateral" US project.

The treaty that Putin referred to is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was signed by Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.

Rice was accompanied by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for high-level talks in Moscow with Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov and Anatoly Serdyukov. The US Secretaries tried to assure the Russian officials that the defense system is not nuclear deterrent.

The Russians see the missile plan as an endeavor to weaken their country's power in the region, so they announced they will take measures to prevent the missile threat if no other countries join the US on the system, said Lavrov, cited by Interfax.

"We would like to avoid that," he added said.

The US had reviewed President Putin’s offer to use the Russian missile tracking facilities in Azerbaijan and southern Russia, but replied that those could not replace for the system in Eastern Europe. For example, the Russian Gabala radar station, which served as a warning system for missiles coming from the Middle East, is considered by the US too close to react effectively to threats from states like Iran.

"The United States has made a counter offer, which aims to find mutually acceptable solutions. We will study this offer, and our experts will continue to work," Lavrov said.

Before the meeting took place, President Vladimir Putin urged the US Secretaries to stop the missile defense plans.

"These are not easy negotiations, we hope that you will not press on your previous agreements with eastern European countries," the Russian President said.

The US missile defense system includes the placement of 10 missile sites in Poland which would intercept long-range missiles coming from North Korea or Iran. Russian was invited to participate in the radar system, but President Putin is still suspicious.