Global Security Newswire

Poland and the United States have finished negotiating an agreement that would address the legal status of U.S. military personnel to be deployed on Polish territory with a Patriot missile defense system, Reuters reported last week (see GSN, Oct. 19).

Under the Status of Forces Agreement, crimes committed in Poland by U.S. military personnel would be subject to Polish jurisprudence if they are conducted off base and outside the course of their duties. Taxation of U.S. troops is also addressed in the deal.

"(Polish) Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accepted the result of the negotiations I conducted with the Americans," Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski said Friday.

The sides plan to ink the deal on Dec. 10 (Reuters, Nov. 27).

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has encouraged Tusk to acquire French-built MBDA missile defenses instead of the Patriot system, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reported, according to the Polish Press Agency.

Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich warned that the proposal had not yet been formalized.

The French system would cost roughly 30 percent less than its U.S. counterpart, unofficial sources indicated (Polish Press Agency, Nov. 27).

Meanwhile, NATO could pursue missile defenses for its member nations if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, the alliance's secretary general said last week (see GSN, Nov. 25).

"I do hope that we, through diplomatic and political pressure, are able to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability," Agence France-Presse quoted Anders Fogh Rasmussen as saying (see related GSN story, today).

If Iran acquired nuclear armaments, though, "it might of course eventually become NATO business as well, because then it is a question of protecting our territories and our populations against a potential threat."

"To that end, we are right now considering the possibility to establish missile defence which also covers Europe," he said (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Nov. 26).