The United States was “very appreciative of the prime minister’s statement today,’’ Biden responded, adding that Washington would send a high-level defense team to Prague next month to “discuss the terms this participation will take.’’
In neighboring Slovakia, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the system envisioned by the Obama administration would provide Europeans and Americans with protection against a “real threat.’’
Speaking to reporters in Bratislava after Secretary Robert Gates briefed NATO defense ministers there, Fogh Rasmussen added that NATO will work with the United States to incorporate the system fully into the alliance.
“Ministers welcomed the fact the new approach puts European missile defense more into a NATO context,’’ he said, adding: “It is good for solidarity.’’
Biden’s visit to Central Europe - he was in Poland and Romania earlier this week - comes a month after the Obama administration scrapped George W. Bush-era blueprints to base a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe designed to shoot down long-range missiles. Russia had strongly objected that the system jeopardized its own security.
The decision sparked fears in formerly communist Eastern Europe that Washington was sacrificing its interests in order to improve ties with Russia.
On Wednesday, Poland eagerly signed on to the revamped US missile shield.
But in the Czech Republic not everyone was pleased by yesterday’s developments.
“We are outraged,’’ said Jan Tamas, spokesman for the Nonviolence Movement and organizer of past anti-missile defense protests in the country.
“It’s alarming that a government without a proper mandate is negotiating about it and claims it wants to participate,’’ Tamas said.
Analysts had predicted it was unlikely Biden would leave with a clear commitment from Prague, since the country’s weak caretaker government lacks a mandate to move forward on any strategic defense issues, including missile defense deals. A new government will be formed only after general elections in May.
The country has been in political limbo since Topolanek’s government lost a parliamentary no-confidence vote in March.
