Obama offers European missile trade off to Russia

US President Barack Obama sent a secret letter to his Russian counterpart three weeks ago, offering to back off from deploying a controversial missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic in return for Moscow's support against the Iranian nuclear programme.

According to unnamed officials cited by the New York Times, the letter to President Dmitri Medvedev was hand-delivered in Moscow by top-level diplomats three weeks ago.

It said the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been fiercely opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

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