NATO Plans Missile Defense Talks

NATO envoys and technical experts plan to discuss U.S. missile defense plans in Europe during meetings on April 19, Agence France-Presse reported Friday (see GSN, March 15).

“These two meetings of the North Atlantic Council and the NATO-Russia Council are important because experts from capital cities will, with the 26 ambassadors, take stock for the first time,” according to a NATO diplomat.

Washington hopes to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic.  There has also been talk in NATO of developing a theater missile defense system for the alliance.

“The deployment in Europe of an antimissile system is raising as many fundamental questions as nuclear arms did at the time of the Cold War,” said a European diplomat.  “It could, like those times, change the strategic balance and alter the political climate” (Pascal Mallet, Agence France-Presse I, March 15).

German officials continued to question the initiative, the Associated Press reported.

“We need no new missiles in Europe,” Kurt Beck, head of the governing Social Democrats, told the Bild daily (Associated Press I/New York Times, March 19).

“The United States maintains a need to protect itself from Iranian long-range rockets.  That is legitimate — even when there are not yet any such weapons.  But security cannot be bought at the price of a new mistrust or a brand-new insecurity,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an editorial (David Rising, Associated Press II/San Diego Union-Tribune, March 17).

Meanwhile, residents of the Czech village of Trokavec on Saturday came out strongly against placing a radar base near their home, AFP reported.

All but one of the 72 people who voted in a symbolic referendum opposed the base. There are about 90 registered voters in the village.  Other nearby communities are also expected to conduct their own referendums, said Trokavec Mayor Jan Neoral (Sophie Pons, Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, March 17).

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