„We live in a world in which we face small nuclear threats, small potential missile threats from, for instance, Iran,” Rice said yesterday in Washington. „A limited missile defense that can deal with small threats is very much a stabilizing factor, not a destabilizing factor.” Rice spoke after meeting at the State Department with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has criticized the US plan, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
The US is negotiating to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic, both formerly part of the old Soviet bloc. Russian officials have called the proposed shield a threat to their country, and Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said on March 14 that his country would take „military measures” to counter it. Rice said that is unnecessary. „The notion that somehow this is aimed at Russia is simply not borne out by the facts,” she said. There is growing unease over the missile system in Western Europe as well. Steinmeier warned in the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Sunday that the shield as proposed raises the potential for a new arms race.
European leaders also have expressed concerns about the US decision to negotiate directly with Poland and the Czech Republic rather than the NATO or the EU. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said February 19 that both countries would probably agree to the US request. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the governing party candidate to replace French President Jacques Chirac in May elections, said on Sunday on France 3 television that he didn’t favor „that each country make decisions all alone,” and instead wanted the missile shield to be „a European decision.” (Bloomberg)
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