As announced by press office of Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation, a regular meeting of Russian-American Consulting Group on Defense Problems took part in Moscow on Feb. 18 and 19, 1999.

The agenda of the meeting was devoted to further development of the relations between the two countries in the area of defense. In particular, the fulfillment of SALT-1 treaty, a number of existing and potential threats to national security of the two countries were discussed. Among these problems, the millennium bug problem was considered as a danger for both USA and Russia.

This was the first meeting officially devoted to coordination of the two countries' efforts in solving the year 2000 problem. It should be mentioned, however, that the first consultations on this matter were held as early as July 1998.

American computer experts believe that date misinterpretation in control systems of strategic ballistic missiles can result in dangerous accidents with Russian nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation has made an official statement saying that by no means can the millennium bug cause the launch of the missiles.

The co-chairmen of the Russian-American Consulting Group on Defense Problems, first vice-chairman of the Headquarters of Military Forces of Russia general-colonel Valery Manilov and assistant of the USA Minister of Defense in international security politics Edward Warner, highly appreciated the work done by the group. They also highlighted the purposefulness of continuing such meetings to make the positions of the two parties at arguable points closer to each other. This will serve the further development of mutually beneficial cooperation.

No official documents were adopted during the meeting.

Source: InfoArt News Agency

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