Washington - The United States wants to send a top diplomat to Russia before the end of President George W Bush's term to discuss plans for deploying a missile-defence system to Eastern Europe.

Undersecretary of State John Rood, who has lead the diplomatic discussions on the missile defence plans, hopes to travel to Moscow to discuss an updated proposal designed to alleviate Russian concerns, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said.

Wood said the United States has not received a formal reply from Moscow about the proposal and expressed frustration about comments in the media from unnamed Russian officials.

"It's probably a better idea to have John Rood there to discuss his proposals than having Russian officials talking about them in the press," Wood said.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a French newspaper in an article published Thursday that the Kremlin will drop plans to deploy missile to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in Eastern Europe if president-elect Barack Obama reverses Bush's plans to field 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic by 
2013.

"We are prepared to drop our decision to deploy missiles at Kaliningrad if the new American administration decides to abandon its anti-missile system," Medvedev said.

Wood dismissed the comments and restated the US desire to cooperate with Russia on missile defence and that the system does not threaten Moscow's strategic nuclear fleet.

"Certainly not on our side is there an escalation of tension," Wood said.

The United States wants to deploy the system to counter Iran's growing ballistic missile capability.

Obama has been less committed to the deployment than Bush and, like other Democrats, is sceptical about the technical capabilities of the long-range interceptor system. But the president-elect has not taken a firm position on the deployment.

"He supports deploying a missile-defense system when the technology is proved to be workable," Denis McDonough, one of Obama's foreign policy advisors, said Saturday.

The dispute over missile defence has been among the most contentious issues in worsening US-Russian relations. The day after Obama's election, Medvedev announced the Kremlin's intention to base an unspecified number of short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and Lithuania. (dpa)