From RIA Novosti:  Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin will visit China and Iran in mid-January to discuss a U.S.-backed global missile defense network.

“We are planning to visit both Beijing and Tehran soon under the Russian president’s directive, to discuss the planned deployment of a global missile defense network,” Rogozin said during a roundtable meeting at the lower house of the Russian parliament.

Rogozin said he would meet with Foreign Ministry and General Staff officials in China, and hold talks with the head of the Supreme National Security Council and diplomats in Iran. . . .

Rogozin called the U.S. proposals to jointly monitor missile threats over Europe and to allow Russian experts to take part in the first tests of the global missile shield next spring as “absurd” on Monday.

“It looks more like propaganda than a serious proposal… Our specialists might have been interested in monitoring the tests if they could use telemetric equipment but Washington will not allow that,” he said.

“They said our experts could look through binoculars from some sort of a barge from a long distance. . . ."  (photo: Voice of Russia)

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