Russian chief critical of missile shield

LONDON, April 3 (UPI) -- Efforts from both sides will be needed to settle the issue of the U.S. missile shield in Europe, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says.

Speaking in London, Medvedev said he had talked with U.S. President Barack Obama "and saw that the America has the desire to listen to our arguments."

He called the shield an "unpleasant situation" and "a mistake that was on the conscience of the former U.S. administration," Itar-Tass reported.

"Many European colleagues are of the same opinion," he said.

"As it appears to us, the American missile defense system cannot work against all the threats but at the same time it is close to our territory," Medvedev said in the Itar-Tass report. "And we cannot take the sacramental declarations that the system is not targeted against us.

"Therefore the response measures were worked out; I would not want to take them at all."