Poland, US say they are moving closer to deal on missile defense

Poland, US say they are moving closer to deal on missile defense

© AP
06.09.2007 19:08:03

(live-PR.com) - WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland and the United States are moving closer to a deal on placing a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, officials said Thursday after a day of talks.

Teams of Polish and American negotiators, joined by lawyers, began two days of negotiations, working through detailed legal issues involved in placing an American base and military personnel on Polish territory.
«We are significantly closer to the conclusion of our talks,» said the chief Polish negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski. «And I think over two or three months we will be able to clarify, negotiate and agree and sign the document.
His American counterpart, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Rood, agreed that «we have made some substantial progress.
«Certainly our Polish colleagues are quite capable of being firm and direct when they need to be, but the spirit of discussion is that among allies who are friends,» Rood said at a news conference.
Waszczykowski said the talks dealt with «very complicated legal issues, including those connected to access, operation and functioning of the base.
The talks, which run through Friday, are the third round since Washington asked Warsaw in January to host 10 interceptor missiles as part of what is designed to ultimately become a global shield.
Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have voiced strong support for hosting the site. But Poland insists that any deal not harm its security.
A focus of discussion is Poland's insistence that, in return for hosting the site, Washington provide it with some form of additional security _ such as Patriot missiles _ which Warsaw views as needed considering neighboring Russia's outrage over the plan.

During the decades of communism, Poland was a satellite of the Soviet Union. Warsaw feels uneasy over what it sees as Russia's ambition to maintain control over its historical sphere of influence.
The talks come days after Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, warned that Russia remains opposed to having a missile defense site located in its backyard.
«Our partners should understand that we don't bargain,» Lavrov said Monday. «It should be understood that, for all the non-confrontational external policy of Russia, there are so-called 'red lines' for us _ this is when there is a real threat to our national security or to the existing order of international rights.
«Among these are, for example, plans for deploying bases in Eastern Europe for a global missile-defense system by the United States.
The U.S. also hopes to set up a radar base in Poland's southwestern neighbor, the Czech Republic, as part of the system.