Russia is interested in cooperating with NATO on the establishment of a joint missile defense system, its President, Dmitry Medvedev has stated.

NATO foreign ministers agreed at their informal meeting in Estonia last week to begin dialogue with Russia on cooperation in the sphere of anti-missile defense.

In an interview with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), Medvedev said that a system of global missile defense must protect “all responsible participants of the international society”, as cited by ITAR-TASS.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen stressed last week in Estonia the importance of cooperation on missile defense that would protect the European and Russian populations against "a real missile threat."

Medvedev said that if Russia is not included in the system, it would have to react somehow to it.

In February, Romania and Bulgaria said they were in talks with the US on deploying elements of the US missile shield in Europe after the Obama Administration abandoned the plans of its predecessors to base the system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"Russia simply wants good relations with other countries - both large and small ones. We believe that our country is an organic part of the modern world and want to develop along with the rest of the world. The face of modern Russia is a smiling face... But other countries must smile back at us,” Russian President Medvedev said.