President Barack Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defence system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said on Monday.

On Tuesday, President Dmitri A Medvedev offered a measured response, saying that the Kremlin was “working very closely with our US colleagues on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program,” but not in the context of the American missile defence plan.

“No one links these issues to any exchange, especially on the Iran issue,” Interfax reported that Medvedev said at a news conference in Madrid, where he was visiting to boost economic and political ties.

“What we are getting from our US partners shows at least one thing: Our US partners are ready to discuss the issue,” he said. “It’s good, because several months ago we were getting different signals — that the decision has been made, there is nothing to speak about, that we have done everything as we have decided.”

The Obama letter was hand-delivered in Moscow by top administration officials three weeks ago. It said the US would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

The officials who described the contents of the message requested anonymity. While they said it did not offer a direct quid pro quo, the letter was intended to give Moscow an incentive to join the US in a common front against Iran. Russia’s military, diplomatic and commercial ties to Tehran give it some influence there, but it has often resisted Washington’s hard line against Iran.

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