EU states raise no objection to US missile plan at NATO forum
US plans to build a shield against intercontinental missiles in Poland and the Czech republic received tacit approval from the 26 NATO member countries at a meeting on Thursday (19 April), despite opposition to the plan inside the EU and from Russia.
"There were no critical comments on the US system," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said after the first meeting of high-level NATO political representatives on the US plan, held at NATO headquarters just a few kilometres outside the EU capital, Brussels.
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Out of the 26 NATO members, 21 countries are also EU member states, including Germany (which previously said the US should consult Russia more) as well as Greece and Italy (parts of which are reportedly to be excluded from the US shield coverage for technical reasons).
"There was an agreement that there is a threat to Europe from missiles...Iran was named," Mr Appathurai added, after a presentation by US general, Henry Obering, using Pentagon battle management software to detail European defence scenarios with and without the shield.
The NATO countries also agreed that a parallel NATO project, to build a European shield against short range missiles by 2015, should be "bolted-on" to the US shield and that both projects should give "full transparency" to Russia.
The Thursday political discussion comes ahead of a NATO foreign ministers' gathering in Oslo next week that will also debate the US shield. But Mr Appathurai underlined that NATO has no legal mandate to "interfere" in US-Poland-Czech bilateral defence plans in any case.
EU not mentioned
He added that nobody on Thursday raised the issue of discussing the US shield with EU foreign and security policy structures, despite a recent call by EU top diplomat Javier Solana to hold an EU-level debate on the subject in line with article 16 of the EU treaty on consultation.
"It would be a mistake not to talk about it," Mr Solana said in the European Parliament on 29 March, amid strong criticism of the US plan by left-wing and liberal MEPs, some of whom called the shield a US plot to split Europe.
Mr Solana has already held informal talks on the US plan with NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, but any formal cooperation between NATO and the EU in this area is made difficult by a row between Turkey and Cyprus.
NATO member Turkey has blocked EU member Cyprus from taking part in discussions on strategic security issues, such as missile defence, at monthly EU-NATO consultations, effectively limiting the consultations to talk of joint peacekeeping missions only.
Warsaw and Prague forging ahead
Meanwhile, Poland has secured internal "political agreement" to launch negotiations with the US on the shield in the next few weeks, Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on Wednesday. The Czech republic opened talks with the US last month.
If Polish and Czech parliaments ratify the US plan by the end of this year, the system could be operational by 2012, with Washington predicting that Iran will have missiles capable of hitting the US and Europe by 2015.
The shield project will see 10 interceptor missiles located in underground silos in Poland operated by 200 military staff and a radar base situated in the Czech republic requiring 150 personnel.
The interceptors have no warheads and work by smashing into intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs] at altitudes above the earth's atmosphere, with debris burning up as it falls down to earth.
Russian hostility
The US has taken pains to allay Russian mistrust of the project, with US officials in Moscow on Wednesday presenting a missile shield cooperation blueprint offering: Russian tours of the Polish missile silos, sharing of early-warning data and joint R&D projects on missile technology.
But on Thursday Russian first deputy prime minister and potential Putin successor, Sergei Ivanov, was quoted by the Financial Times as saying neither Iran nor North Korea have the kind of technology the US is talking about.
"Since there aren't and won't be ICBMs, then against whom is this system directed? Only against us," he said.
"Frankly, I don't see how we could be more open [with Russia]," a US diplomat at the Thursday NATO meeting said. "Russia is trying to sow disunity inside the EU by using the new member states," an EU diplomat from one of the new member states added.