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NATO urges Russia to tone down its high-level `rhetoric'

NATO urged Russia on Wednesday to tone down its "fiery rhetoric" after repeated Moscow attacks on the growing influence of the military alliance and US plans to base parts of a missile shield in Europe.

"We have seen too much rhetoric at too high a level ... we would like to see it dialled down," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told the Russian press in a video conference, speaking from Brussels.

"Fiery rhetoric does make the headlines and there has been a little too much of it," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday accused NATO of aiming to replace the UN and warned of raising the potential for conflict.

"You get the impression that attempts are being made to set up an organization that would substitute for the UN," he said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Relations between Russia and the Western military alliance have deteriorated in recent years amid a NATO expansion drive, US plans to install anti-missile defenses in central Europe and Moscow's suspension of a key Cold War-era arms pact.

Putin is expected to attend a NATO summit early next month in Bucharest with some 50 state leaders including US President George W. Bush.

In a move to ease strained US-Russian relations, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Moscow next Monday and Tuesday to meet with their Russian counterparts and seek talks with Putin and president-elect Dmitry Medvedev, aides said.

Washington's anti-missile shield plans to install 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic have angered Russia, which sees them as a threat to its security.

US defense officials say the system is intended to counter a possible attack from "rogue" states such as Iran.

A NATO expert said on Wednesday that the alliance's leaders will discuss at the April 2 summit a new analysis of the threat posed by a possible missile attack, as well as the role of the proposed US system and how NATO might complement it.

The new analysis "will allow heads of state and government to have informed discussions and eventually make decisions on a NATO approach to missile defense," said Peter Flory, head of NATO's defense investment division.
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