Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for trade concessions, including an end to restrictions on technology transfers to Russia, following U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to abandon a missile shield in Europe.

“I’m counting on other decisions to follow this correct and brave decision, including the complete elimination of restrictions on cooperation with Russia and on transfers of high technology to Russia as well as an intensification of World Trade Organization expansion to include Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan,” Putin said at a business forum in Sochi today.

Obama yesterday said he was scrapping the missile-system proposal, championed by his predecessor George W. Bush in the face of Russian opposition, in favor of a more flexible system better able to protect against threats to the U.S. and its European allies, primarily from Iran.

Putin announced in June that Russia would seek to join the WTO as part of a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, a proposal that U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke called “not workable and unacceptable.” Medvedev said in July that Russia may join separately from its neighbors.

The U.S. maintains Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia under the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, imposed in response to Soviet limitations on Jewish emigration. Putin has called repeatedly for the U.S. to repeal the amendment.

‘Responsible’ Move

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed Obama’s “responsible” decision to abandon Bush’s plan for a radar installation in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland. The plan contributed to the worst state of relations between Russia and the U.S. since the Cold War, even though the U.S. maintained the system wasn’t directed against Russia.

Medvedev issued a challenge hours after Obama’s election win in November, saying he’d deploy short-range Iskander missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Poland and Lithuania, to “neutralize” the U.S. system if it were built. Russia viewed the proposed system as a threat to its security.

A Kremlin official said Russia “will of course have to review” the proposed deployment in Kaliningrad after Obama’s announcement. The Interfax news service cited an unidentified diplomat as saying that Russia will “freeze” and may “cancel” the Iskander plan.

‘Stricter Sanctions’

In Washington, some lawmakers said Russia should respond to the U.S. initiative by backing Washington on Iran. Senator Chuck Schumer said it was time for the Russians “to join our push to impose stricter sanctions on Iran in order to halt its nuclear weapons program.”

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called on Russia to drop its opposition to tighter sanctions against Iran. He urged the Kremlin to “join us in putting a maximum of political and diplomatic pressure on Iran to stop Iran’s nuclear aspirations.”

Russia, which is helping Iran build its first nuclear power plant at Bushehr, has a veto on the United Nations Security Council and has consistently opposed moves to isolate the country. Russia is also a member of the group of six countries addressing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

Medvedev said on Sept. 15 that sanctions are “not a very effective thing,” though “sometimes one must have recourse” to them. The comment, made in a meeting with international experts on Russia, struck some participants as more West-leaning than the line taken by Putin.

‘Harsher Line’

Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to Medvedev, said today that it would be wrong to speak of Russian “concessions” in response to the U.S. move.

“We have to engage Iran,” Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, said in Brussels today. “The harsher words are pronounced as regards Iran, the more sanctions there are, the worse it is for all, because that could only stimulate a harsher line in Iran itself.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that nuclear talks scheduled for Oct. 1 between Iran and the U.S., China, Russia, the U.K., France and Germany have a “real chance” of producing “agreements allowing for the restoration of confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” Interfax reported.

Lavrov said that wasting this chance “by demanding the immediate imposition of sanctions” against Iran would be a “serious mistake,” the Moscow-based news service reported.

To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Abelsky in Sochi at pabelsky@bloomberg.net; Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 18, 2009 10:36 EDT