"The Russia-US talks are still going on even if the talks are not positive," Ivanov, one of Russia's two deputy prime ministers, told reporters after meeting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates in Munich, Germany.

Ivanov said Russia was willing "to continue a bilateral dialogue" on the shield, which it sees as a security threat but which Washington maintains is needed to ward off potential attacks by "rogue states", notably Iran.

Gates told journalists on Saturday that for all Moscow's tough rhetoric, Russia was still willing to discuss American plans to build anti-missile facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Elements of Washington's global anti-missile defence system are already in place or being planned in the United States itself, Britain and Japan, while negotiations are ongoing with Warsaw and Prague.

American wants to install 10 interceptor missile sites in Poland by 2012 and associated radar stations in the Czech Republic. Russia is enraged at the prospect of such sites on its doorstep.

The Czech Republic and Poland, both former Warsaw Pact countries, joined the the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1999, a decade after the collapse of the communist bloc.

Russia has warned it could point its own missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic if American goes ahead with its plans.

A NATO spokesman this week told President Vladimir Putin to lower the tone of his rhetoric after he spoke of a new "arms race" confronting his successor, Ivanov spoke in more diplomatic terms on Sunday, noting that "construction of the system will require four to five years so there is no need for a hasty response."

He again outlined Russian objections to the plan, saying the radar to be built in the Czech Republic would allow the United States to spy on the whole of Russia, right up to the Ural mountains.

"If the United States had wanted to set up their system in Turkey, in Iraq or Afghanistan, that wouldn't have been a problem for us," Ivanov said, adding that "Iran has no missiles capable of reaching Poland or western Russia."

He did note, however, that a recent missile test by Tehran "does not add to the confidence of the international community."

Putin sparked concerns in the West with his speech Friday in which he heralded a wealthy Russia able to compete in a new "arms race" in response to US military deployments ever closer to its territory.

Warsaw has been seeking to calm Russian concerns, with both Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski visiting Moscow for wide-ranging talks that have included the missile issue.

"More needs to be done to reassure Russia that the missile defence project does not threaten her," Sikorski said Saturday in a speech to the Munich conference.

"The decision on the base will be between the United States and Poland," he said, but reiterated that Warsaw was "ready to consider a mix of monitoring and inspection that would reassure everyone that the proposed facility should be of concern only to the bad guys."

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