Russia

President Vladimir Putin: "[NMD deployment would do] irreparable damage to the architecture of international relations … We will have a complex and delicate work this year with our partners to preserve the 1972 [ABM] treaty … [however] the latest statements from the leaders of the new administration, the new president, show that a dialogue (on security issutes) could be positive."

Colonel General Valeri Manilov, Russia's First Deputy Chief of General Staff: "[NMD is] liable to destroy the balance of strategic, defensive and offensive weapons and lead to a new arms race."

Russian Foreign Ministry Statement: "[U.S. military strategy is] based not only on the breakdown of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, a cornerstone of strategic stability, but also on the speedy militarization of space and its use for combat operations … such prospects were fraught with deadly consequences for international security."

China

Chairman of the People's Congress Li Peng: "The establishment of missile defence systems is a new form of arms race and reflects a Cold War mind-set. Therefore, it is detrimental to world peace."

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhu Bangzao: "China hopes that the countries concerned will listen to the just cries of the international community, strictly observe and uphold the ABM Treaty, and abandon as soon as possible ABM schemes that wreck the global strategic balance."

United Kingdom

Prime Minister Tony Blair: "We have not said that we are opposed, what we have said is until there is a proper proposal before us we will not make a detailed comment upon it … It is an extremely sensitive issue . . . I have personally said earlier that we understand the reasons entirely why America wishes to develop this system but until there is a proposal it would be rather foolish to answer how we react to that proposal."

Foreign Minister Robin Cook: "We will give them a serious answer, a considered answer in a way that reflects the fact that they are our closest ally and their security is important to us. I don't think we should try and tell the Americans what the answer is to their own debate."

France

President Jacques Chirac: "Our worry comes from the fact that for us, the NMD must not be allowed to spark a fresh worldwide arms race … it is a technology that has colossol costs ''

Gen. Jean-Pierre Kelche, French armed forces chief of staff : "I don't think this [NMD] is the right road… this is what I call the road of pessimism, the road of abandonment of non-proliferation, which was at the heart of our common policy, the policy of the international community.”

Germany

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder: "Differences over NMD are not the decisive factor in the German-American relationship."

Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping: "The technical feasibility and the financing of a strategic missile defense are not at all manageable yet."

Sweden

Anna Lindh, Swedish Foreign Minister: “We call on the USA to consider the consequences for disarmament and non-proliferation of developing a national missile defense system, and to refrain from pursuing this project.”

Canada

Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley: "If (President Bush) can persuade the Russians and the Chinese, then he can persuade Canada … We haven't been asked for our opinion. Will the effect of failing to obtain Russian consent to a change in the ABM treaty cause them to become more provocative and start a renewed arms race and threaten Europe? That would concern NATO and that concerns us."

Defence Minister Art Eggleton: "We are open-minded on the issue (of NMD) … I've also, of course, told (Rumsfeld) … that we are concerned about relations with allies, and the relationship in terms of other countries as it relates to arms control issues … national missile defense is an area we have not made a decision on. We don't have all the details."

Australia

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer: "We've said we understand the need to defend the United States from attacks by rogue states, but there is a long way to go in terms of the evolution of this issue, and we'll be talking with the Bush administration about it … I think, frankly, they'll be looking at material they wouldn't have had access to up until now."

South Korea

President Kim Dae-jung: (Responding to question on NMD) "I cannot comment on that point because I have not to this point heard any extensive briefing from the new U.S. administration on this plan. I do not know exactly what their plans are and how the Korean peninsula would be involved in this … should it (the U.S.) feel the need and when it feels the time is right to explain, I'm sure it will do so."

Representative Chun Yong-taik, Chairman of National Assembly Defense Committee: "The plan is technically nonviable and politically undesirable. The only solution to North Korea's missile program is a political solution."

For additional global quotations on the ABM and NMD visit the British American Security Information Council.