NATO allies study extension to U.S. missile shield

Andrew Gray and Mark John
Reuters
Thursday June 14, 2007

NATO was expected to discuss on Thursday possible extension of a planned U.S. missile defense to the alliance's vulnerable southeastern flank and may express interest in Kremlin proposals for cooperation in the shield.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and NATO colleagues will discuss a Kremlin offer of participation with counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov amid Western hopes Moscow wants to tone down four months of blistering attacks on the U.S. project.

"I will certainly underscore our interest in exploring with them President Putin's proposal with respect to the radar in Azerbaijan," Gates told reporters ahead of two days of talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

"I'm very pleased that President Putin acknowledged that there is merit to missile defense, that Iran does represent a problem that needs to be dealt with in terms of potential missile defense," he said.

"I think there's a basis for some good conversations," he added of the Russia offer to share data from the Qabala radar in northern Azerbaijan, a proposal on which U.S. officials have yet to offer a detailed analysis in public.

While no immediate breakthrough with Russia is expected, the NATO talks will prepare the ground for a one-on-one encounter between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin at the Bush family's Maine compound on July 1-2.

They are also expected to yield an accord among U.S. allies to explore by early next year how they could plug gaps in the U.S. shield sited in Poland and the Czech Republic.

BOLT-ON OPTION

The United States plans to use interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic, a configuration Washington says is ideal for blocking any missile, for example from Iran, heading towards the United States and most of Europe.

However, it will provide less cover to countries closer to the perceived threat, notably Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, analysts say.

NATO officials hope the alliance can agree by a summit next April to start work on a so-called "bolt-on" system that will deploy complementary interceptors to cover southeast Europe.

"It must be in our interest to jointly build a shield system for Europe," German defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told reporters ahead of the talks.

Russia has said the U.S. scheme is a threat to its own security and that the proposed U.S. bases on its doorstep could be converted to more dangerous uses in the future.

Putin's offer to share the Azeri radar took Western leaders by surprise at last week's Group of Eight summit in Germany.

While some analysts have questioned how technically viable the proposal is, the United States is portraying the offer as a sign the Russians have accepted many of its arguments, notably that a threat from "rogue state" missiles does exist.

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