UPDATE 1-Idea of U.S. threat to Russia is "ludicrous" - Rice

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OSLO, April 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed as nonsense on Thursday the concerns of some Russian officials that a planned U.S. missile shield in eastern Europe could pose a strategic threat to Moscow.

"The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it," she told reporters ahead of a NATO-Russia meeting in Oslo.

"The Russians have thousands of warheads. The idea that you can somehow stop the Russian strategic nuclear deterrent with a few interceptors just doesn't make sense."

Rice and NATO counterparts are to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Oslo three days after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates failed during a trip to Moscow to convince Russia the shield was not a strategic threat.

Rice said the United States was willing to keep talking to Russian officials to "demystify" the plan to site 10 interceptor rockets in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic, a project which has also jangled nerves among several European allies.

"We are very happy to continue this dialogue but we have to continue on a basis of a realistic assessments of what we are proposing, not one that is grounded somehow in the 1980s," said Rice, meeting Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.

Stoere said Norway was not yet convinced by the U.S. argument that the shield was urgently needed to pre-empt potential threats from Iran and North Korea.

"I am still in listening mode and I am still to be convinced about the threat," he said at a joint news conference with Rice.