Look who may be cooperating on missile defence

American officials said the initiatives were proposed at least in part at the urging of European allies, and reflected an acknowledgment at the highest levels of the Bush administration that it had not been agile in dealing with Russia — and with some NATO allies — on its plan to place defensive missiles and radar in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The initiatives include offers that are ‘‘deeper, more specific and concrete’’ than any previous proposal for cooperation from the Bush administration to the Kremlin, according to one senior official involved in planning talks with the Russians.

In military terms, the American initiative to the Russians on missile defence will include an invitation ‘‘toward fundamental integration of our systems’’, said a senior military officer involved in the discussions. This concept of linking some American and Russian military systems for common missile defence would be at a level that exists in no other area of United States-Russia military relations.

The offers of cooperation will be laid out for Russian officials in the coming weeks in a series of high-level meetings being scheduled by senior American officials, in particular Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. If those talks go well, they will continue over the summer and fall between President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin.

Despite a series of bilateral sessions under NATO sponsorship to explain the American missile defence plan, Putin and his inner circle have expressed deep resentment about it, voicing their anger in public comments that have greatly worried some close American allies in Europe.

‘‘In the past, the Russians have not taken our offers of cooperation seriously, whether because they view them as insufficient or because they are obstinate on missile defence,’’ said another senior administration official involved in planning the initiatives.

‘‘So Gates and then Rice will put their weight behind this new offer,’’ the official added.

In its proposals on missile defence, the Bush administration is asking Poland to base 10 antimissile interceptors on its territory and the Czech Republic to be host to a tracking radar. Both systems are designed to defend European territory from missile attack by Iran, but have threatened to rupture ties with Moscow and have upset some NATO allies.

American officials hold no illusions that the new incentives will guarantee Russia’s assent to the missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, as the Kremlin’s opposition to missile bases is wrapped up in domestic politics as well as its view of national security policy in Washington and its NATO allies.

To date, Russian officials have scoffed at any suggestion that Moscow’s objections to American missile defence bases in former Soviet states would be eased by offers of cooperation.

‘‘As for possible cooperation in strategic antimissile defence, honestly speaking, I see no reasons for that,’’ said Sergei B. Ivanov, a first deputy prime minister who previously served as Russia’s minister of defence, in remarks quoted by the Interfax news agency.

American officials have sought to counter Russian rebukes by pointing out that the limited missile defence system envisioned for Europe — 10 interceptors whose warheads are designed to collide with approaching missiles, and do not even carry an explosive — is numerically no threat to Moscow’s vast strategic rocket force.

The proposed system, Americans say, is a prudent deterrent against a potential Iranian attack on American allies in Europe and on American forces based there.

American officials concede that part of the Russian motivation to block American missile defence is a fear that the US, over time, might develop a bold, new ‘‘breakout’’ technology that could some day neuter the Russian strategic arsenal.

The concept of sharing antimissile technology with the Russians is hardly new. In fact, even when President Ronald Reagan proposed his grand plan for a leakproof missile shield under the so-called Star Wars programme, he pledged that the new technology could be shared with the Kremlin in order to assure Russia that it had nothing to fear from American defences.

The missile defence proposals for central Europe also have become a proxy issue for Russian officials who still rankle at American and NATO expansion east after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yet even among some officials in Poland and the Czech Republic, support for the two missile defence bases has more to do with binding the United States closer to their capitals against a future Russian threat than about deterring a future Iranian missile threat.

American officials have not announced the timetable for the coming talks. But in Moscow, Igor Ivanov, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said that Gates was due there for Kremlin meetings on Monday and that Rice would visit in May.

–THOM SHANKER