Washington - Poland will offer a set of proposals designed
to assure Russia that US plans to base a missile-defence system in
Eastern Europe will not pose a threat.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said his country will
allow Russia to monitor and inspect the facility but not agree to a
permanent presence of Russian officials.
'We would like Russia to have the confidence that whatever we
declare might happen in those facilities is the case,' Sikorski said
Wednesday at the Atlantic Council of the United States, a Washington
think tank.
The United States plans to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland
and a radar site in the Czech Republic by 2013 to counter Iran's
growing ballistic missile threat.
Moscow views the deployment as an act of aggression that threatens
its strategic nuclear deterrent, and the issue has brought US-Russian
relations to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said November 5 that Moscow will
field missiles in its Kaliningrad enclave in Eastern Europe in
response to the US deployment.
Medvedev has expressed hope that when president-elect Barack Obama
takes office he will reverse President George W Bush's plans for
missile defence. Obama has been more skeptical of the deployment, but
has not announced whether he will proceed.
USA
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