Washington - The United States is optimistic that a dispute
with Russia over the planned deployment of a missile-defence system
in Eastern Europe can be harnessed into a more cooperative effort to
address the long range missile threat posed by Iran, the top US
general for missile defence said Thursday.
Lieutenant General Henry Obering, the chief of the Pentagon's
Missile Defence Agency, said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-
Agentur dpa said the Russian radar site in Azerbaijan could feed into
a US system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic.
'In a large measure these would be complimentary of each other,
not in lieu of,' Obering said.
The plan to base a system in the two Eastern European countries
has angered Russia and has been the main source of heightened tension
in recent months between Washington and Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed using the Russian
radar station in Azerbaijan as an alternative. The United States has
expressed interest in the offer but said it cannot be a substitute
for an Eastern European deployment.
'We are looking at it very seriously,' Obering said.
Obering said the radar site in Azerbaijan covers a wide area and
could be useful for detecting missile launches in their early stage,
but that it does not have the tracking ability to guide an
interceptor missile to a target.
'That's what the Czech Republic radar would do,' he said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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