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Russia told EU officials on Thursday it wanted to work together on Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad. Russia dismissed a report by the Washington Times that U.S. intelligence had found the Russian nuclear missiles in the region. It had originally reported in January that the missiles had been deployed.
Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, whose country is current EU president, made no mention of the issue after meeting senior administration officials in Moscow.
But she has said she would raise the missile concerns on her trip and was due to arrive in the region later on Thursday.
Sergei Ivanov, the secretary of Kremlin policy making body, the Security Council, said the enclave, home of Russia's biggest naval base, was one of the items on the EU-Russian agenda.
"We would like to talk to you today, to exchange opinions on those issues we could fill with specific content...(notably) security between the EU and Russia," he said in Moscow in remarks broadcast on Russian television. "We can also discuss certain specific issues, including those related to the situation in the Kaliningrad region."
The region, a chunk of land with one million people which was seized by the Soviet Union at the end of World War Two, is set to become a Russian outpost in the EU due to the ambitions of its neighbours, Poland and Lithuania, to join the bloc.
As well as missiles, Kaliningrad has been on diplomats' minds after reports Germany planned to take economic control of it in return for some of Russia's Soviet-era debts to Berlin.
Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev dismissed the new missile report as "absolute and complete nonsense".
"It is difficult for me to comment on such fantasies, which have no foundation whatsoever," Interfax quoted him as saying.
Both Moscow and Berlin have also dismissed any suggestion of a transfer of powers over the region.
The new Washington Times report cited anonymous U.S. intelligence sources who said satellite photographs refuted denials about the transfer of nuclear arms to the enclave.
EU Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana accompanied Lindh to Moscow, but only Patten will join her on the trip to Kaliningrad.
Patten said only Russia could decide whether Kaliningrad becomes a flourishing trade and industry centre like Hong Kong, which he had ruled as a British governor.
Patten said he understood Russian concerns that EU entry by Lithuania and Poland would cause problems for the region. "Now it's for us to ensure that it produces opportunities, not just problems," he told a Moscow news conference.
Kaliningrad was called Koenigsberg before the Soviets seized East Prussia in 1945. It produces 90 percent of the world's amber and was home to 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant.
15 ФЕВРАЛЯ 17:25
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