U.S. Wants Missile Defense Radar in Caucasus

The United States hopes to install a long-range missile defense radar in the Caucasus, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said yesterday (see GSN, March 1).

“It would be very useful for the antimissile system,” said Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, who declined to identify which nation might house the radar (Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, March 1).

Officials in Georgia said as of today they had not been approached regarding a U.S. radar base, AP reported.  An Azerbaijani official echoed their statements.

“There have been no negotiations, and we are not discussing these questions either in a bilateral or multilateral format,” said Khazar Ibrahim, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

Close military ties with Russia means Armenia, the third Caucasus country, is not likely to be approached.

The European Union as a whole is not planning involvement in the U.S. missile shield, said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.  He questioned the likelihood of a missile attack on Europe in the immediate future.

“We are not as Europeans concerned to establish a mechanism of that type,” he said yesterday.  “This is for every country to decide.”

Additional talks are needed within NATO on the U.S. plans, which also call for deployment of 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic, according to German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung (Paul Ames, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, March 2).

Russia yesterday warned again that it would respond strategically to placement of U.S. missile defense components in Europe, AP reported.

Such deployment would be a “factor that we will have to take into account while determining our steps in the military-political sphere and military development,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko.

“In the modern world, security is indivisible,” he said.  “You can’t ensure your own security if you provide other nations’ concerns about their security,” he said in a prepared statement posted online (Lekic, Associated Press).

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