Russia will "always hate" US missile defences because it cannot match them, but that should not stand in the way of ratifying a new US-Russia nuclear arms treaty, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday.

In blunt language, with the administration's top diplomat sitting beside him, Gates told a Senate panel there is little prospect of Washington and Moscow seeing eye-to-eye on missile defences.

"There is no meeting of the minds on missile defences," Gates said. "The Russians hate it. They've hated it since the late 1960s. They will always hate it, mostly because we'll build it and they won't."

Testifying together, Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to calm fears voiced by John McCain about the arms treaty, dubbed New START, which includes a provision that the Arizona Republican said limits future US missile defence options.

Clinton noted the Russian government's statement that it reserves the right to withdraw from the New START treaty if it feels threatened by an expansion of American defences against ballistic

missiles.

"But that is not an agreed upon view. That is not in the treaty," Clinton told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It's the equivalent of a press release, and we are not in any way bound by it."

Clinton and Gates, joined by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, showed a united front in the administration's push for Senate ratification. They argued that the pact, while not perfect, enhances US security without constraining the shape of the US nuclear force.

"It does not infringe upon the flexibility we need to maintain our forces, including bombers, submarines and missiles in the way that best serves our own national security interest," Clinton said.