Russia and the United States will continue looking for a solution to the ongoing dispute on U.S. plans to deploy missile defense elements in Central Europe, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

An agreement can be reached between Russia and the United States on an ongoing missile defense dispute and the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Russia's foreign minister said Thursday.

George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin are to discuss U.S. plans for anti-missile technology in Europe at an September 8-9 Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Sydney, a Russian presidential aide said Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says U.S. missile defense and Kosovo are two "red-line" issues where the Kremlin will not agree to compromise.

Three-way consultations between Russia, Azerbaijan, and the United States on the joint use of the Gabala radar in Azerbaijan are scheduled for September 15, a senior Russian government official said.

A Friday poll showed that majority of Poles oppose a U.S. missile defense base. The survey, by the publicly funded CBOS institute in Warsaw, said that 56 percent of those questioned oppose putting the base on Polish territory - a level of resistance that has remained fairly steady over the past months. The poll said that 28 percent favor the plan.

The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has inaugurated a new facility at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, the agency said in a press release.

Russia is offering to engage NATO in a strategic partnership to counter possible missile threats, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Thursday. As an alternative to U.S. plans to deploy elements of a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, Russia has proposed the joint use of a radar station that Russia leases from Azerbaijan.

A solid majority of Poles continue to oppose hosting a contentious U.S. missile defense base, according to a poll released Tuesday, a day after the president voiced his strongest support to date for the plan.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and U.S. President George W. Bush will discuss Monday plans to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, the White House press service said.

The United States Thursday termed "unfortunate" a threat by a senior Russian official to counter a U.S. missile defense system in Europe with new offensive deployments. But the State Department says the Bush administration is otherwise having a constructive dialogue with Moscow on the issue.

The Czech government has given the U.S. the go ahead to deploy a missile-defense radar near the town of Misov, 90 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Prague, the country's Security Council official said Tuesday.