Czech, U.S. agree U.S. missile shield to be part of NATO

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Lieutenant-General Henry Obering (R) and Czech Republic's Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek answer questions by the media at the government headquarters in Prague Jan. 17, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

The U.S. missile defense shield that is to include the radar base on Czech soil should be part of NATO's system, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and U.S. Missile Defense Agency chief Henry Obering agreed at a meeting of the Czech National Security Council on Thursday.

"I am deeply convinced that the Bucharest NATO summit will show that the (U.S. and NATO) defense against short and medium-range missiles is clearly interlinked," the Czech news agency CTK quoted Topolanek as saying.

He said that the danger of a rocket attack was no fiction and did not concern just one country.

Both the Czech Republic and the United States reckon with the fact that within NATO they must discuss the issue also with Russia, he added.

Obering said the U.S. system is well-functioning and it will defend the Czech Republic and other Central European countries against the threat from Iran.

Iran was developing missiles that could hit a more distant target than for example Israel, he said.

The planned radar base in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland would become elements of the system including also a mobile radar in Japan, interceptor missiles in Alaska, California and on ships, and a radar in Britain, according to Bering.

However, Philip Coyle, a U.S. missile defense expert who is on visit to the Czech Republic these days, claimed that the U.S. anti-missile technology did not prove capable of defending Europe against an Iranian long-range missile attack. The planned U.S. anti-missile system is inefficient and ineffective.

The United States initiated the plan to deploy an anti-missile radar base in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland.

Russia has expressed strong objections to the U.S. missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Some 70 percent of Czechs reject the planned U.S. radar base in their country, according to a survey conducted by the CVVM polling institute.