Global Security Newswire

The lower house of the Czech Republic's parliament will vote no earlier than mid-March on making the nation host to a U.S. missile defense radar base, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 13).

Lawmakers in the chamber voted 100-73 in favor of removing the matter from consideration in this session, which is scheduled to end on March 15. The upper house of parliament has already signed off on the radar proposal.

U.S. President Barack Obama has not formally declared whether he intends to pursue the Bush administration plan for European missile defenses, which would also include 10 missile interceptors in Poland.

The previous administration said the systems were needed to provide defense against missile threats from nations such as Iran. However, the plan faced major opposition from Russia, which characterized it as a strategic threat and pledged to respond accordingly (see GSN, Feb. 2; Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 4).