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PM: U.S. Wants Base in Czech Republic
 PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - The United States has asked the Czech Republic to host a radar base that would be part of a global missile defense system, the prime minister announced. Washington declined comment on Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's statement. But the U.S. has been negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic, both former communist states now in NATO, as it explores setting up missile defense sites in Eastern Europe. Topolanek said his government would name a committee in the next week to consider the U.S. request and a decision could take several months. Czech opposition parties have spoken against the defense system, and the premier's governing coalition does not have enough parliament votes to pass measures on its own. Topolanek said that if the Czech Republic approves the U.S. request, some 200 American specialists would be deployed here and the base would become operational in 2011. "We are convinced that a possible deployment of the radar station on our territory is in our interest," he said. "It will increase security of the Czech Republic and Europe."
In Moscow, Andrei Kokoshin, the former Russian Security Council chief who now heads parliament's committee for ties with former Soviet bloc nations, warned that Czech approval of the plan would "not pass without consequences." Russian lawmakers dealing with security issues "will recommend taking retaliatory measures" that would "help maintain strategic stability and ensure the national security of Russia and our friends and allies," Kokoshin was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency. A State Department spokesman, Edgar Vasquez, told The Associated Press he could not confirm that the Czechs had been asked to host the radar site and Poles the missile interceptors. He only repeated that negotiations were under way. "Depending on the result of the discussions, the U.S. will seek to field a limited number of ground-based missile defense silo launchers, with their associated interceptors, similar to those currently fielded at Fort Greely, Alaska, and to deploy an X-band radar for midcourse tracking and discrimination of ballistic missile threats out of the Middle East," he said. Posted by: Steve White 2007-01-21 |
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