But it said Moscow nevertheless intended to continue discussing changes to US missile defence plans with Washington.

Withdrawing unilaterally from the treaty, which bans the creation of national missile defence systems, would have "negative consequences on international stability", Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov told his US counterpart John Bolton, the ministry said in a statement.

For Washington to scrap the treaty would be "particularly dangerous in the present particularly complicated international situation", Mamedov said, noting that "the great majority of other countries" had spoken in favour of keeping the Cold War era treaty.

He said Russia intended to maintain dialogue with the United States on the future of the ABM treaty as had been decided at the US-Russia summit in November, the foreign ministry said.

The 1972 treaty bars nations from constructing broad national missile defence shields on the premise that the threat of "mutually assured destruction" should prevent nuclear wars from breaking out.

The United States argues the treaty is outdated and no longer takes into account post-Cold War considerations like the threat of a limited missile attack from so-called "rogue states" like North Korea or Iran.

Russia regards the treaty as the keystone of the post-World War II strategic defence system.

But President Vladimir Putin noted on Wednesday that US violations of the treaty would not directly threaten Russia's security "at least for the next decade" since "no anti-missile defence system can withstand the weapons that Russia possesses".

The Mamedov-Bolton meeting, following a long series of earlier encounters between the two ministers, was scheduled to prepare the visit to Moscow next Sunday of US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Mamedov reaffirmed Russia's wish to "formalise" the two countries' "new agreements on strategic disarmament".

At the November 14-15 Russia-US summit President George W. Bush announced Washington would slash its stock of nuclear warheads unilaterally to within a range of 1,700 to 2,200 but refused to sign a treaty to this effect despite Russian hopes for a formal agreement.

Moscow has proposed that both sides should cut back to 1,500 warheads on either side, compared with 6,000 Russian and 7,000 US warheads at present.

Under their last strategic disarmament accord, START-II, signed in 1997, the two sides have pledged to reduce their stockpiles to 3,500 and 3,000 warheads in the United States and Russia respectively, by the end of 2007.