Bush pushes Russia and EU on missile defence

US President George W Bush said October 23 there was an “urgent” need to deploy a missiledefence system to Eastern Europe because of Iran’s growing ballistic missile capability. “Iran is pursuing the technology that could be used to produce nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles of increasing range that could deliver them,” Bush said.
“The need for missile defence in Europe is real, and I believe it’s urgent,” Bush said in a speech at the National Defence University in Washington, Deutsche-Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.
Bush has aggressively pursued a long-range ballistic-missile- defence system. His administration announced plans earlier this year to deploy 10 missile interceptors to Poland and a radar tracking site to the Czech Republic.
The controversial plans have angered Moscow, which views the system as a threat to its nuclear deterrent and has not ruled out targeting the potential bases in Eastern Europe. Bush cited US intelligence that Iran could have a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe by 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin has played down the Iranian threat and has questioned western claims that the Islamic state is developing nuclear weapons.
But on October 25, Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov billed the United States’ latest offer on a missile shield in Europe as “unacceptable,” Itar-Tass reported from the Netherlands, where the Russian official attended an informal meeting of NATO defence ministers. “US missile defence proposals are unacceptable and do not suit Russia.
There remain disagreements over a number of issues between Russia and NATO countries, in the first place over missile defence and on the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty,” the Russian news agency quoted Serdyukov as saying.
Putin has proposed using a Soviet era radar site in Azerbaijan and a facility in southern Russia. Bush is open to the offer but not as a substitute for the Czech and Polish locations.
Instead he sees it as an opportunity for the two sides to work together against a common threat. “We believe these sites could be included as part of a wider threat monitoring system that could lead to an unprecedented level of strategic cooperation between our two countries,” Bush said.
Bush said the Eastern European sites are too small to endanger Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal. “The missile defences we will deploy are intended to deter countries who would threaten us with ballistic missiles,” Bush said. “We do not consider Russia such a country.”
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, in Prague for talks with Czech leaders about the plans, said Washington is open to allowing a Russian presence at the bases to ease Moscow’s opposition. He also said the United States would consider building the system but not activate it until “concrete proof” of a threat emerged. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proposed the idea earlier this month at a meeting in Moscow attended by Gates and their Russian counterparts.
ÿGates was speaking at a press conference with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who reacted coolly to the idea of allowing the Russian military to return to his country. US officials hope to have negotiations soon completed with Poland and the Czech Republic aiming to have the system in place by 2013.
The US would seek Prague’s approval for the move - proposed in order to ease Moscow’s opposition to the project by providing transparency - before approaching Moscow with further details, Gates added.
“Nothing would be done in this regard without the consent of the Czech government,” Gates said at a press conference after his meeting with Topolanek.
Prague was far from enthusiastic about the offer, a diplomatic source told Deutsche- Presse-Agentur dpa, while a stone-faced Topolanek told reporters: “I don’t feel a need to comment on this.”
“We are not opposed to various ideas based on mutual transparency and reciprocity,” Czech chief negotiator and Deputy Foreign Minister Tomas Pojar told dpa.
He added that it was not yet clear what shape the US proposal of a Russian presence at the central European sites would take. “Specific proposals are not the matter of the day,” Pojar said, adding later that providing transparency “is rather about sharing data and not about physical presence.”
As Soviet troops crushed the Czechoslovak reform movement of 1968 and occupied the country until the fall of communism in 1989, any presence of foreign, let alone Russian, troops on Czech soil is sensitive for Czechs.
“Czechs are really glad they got rid of Russians,” said political scientist Jiri Pehe who found Washington’s offer “politically impassable” for Prague. “I can see those headlines screaming that with American military, Russians will arrive in the Czech Republic.” Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted by the Russina news agency Interfax as saying that the US “made a number of interesting suggestions we’re looking at more closely.”
Washington asked Prague and Warsaw to host a radar and 10 interceptor missiles on their soil respectively for the US missile shield, which the US says is being developed against potential Iranian long-range missiles.
The plan to place the US bases in the central European members of NATO and the European Union has received a lukewarm response across Europe and a frosty one in Russia, which says the system would be aimed at its nuclear arsenal.
Despite adverse public opinion, Czech and Polish governments entered into bilateral talks with the United States earlier this year. Both Gates and Topolanek told reporters that they hope the bilateral talks on the matter will be wrapped up by the year’s end.