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Perfect Timing

Mike

Well-known member
Aug 14, 4:12 PM EDT


US, Poland agree to anti-missile defense deal

By VANESSA GERA and MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
Associated Press Writers

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Poland and the United States reached an agreement Thursday to base American missile interceptors in Poland, the prime minister said, going ahead with a plan that has angered Russia and threatened to escalate tensions with the region's communist-era master.

Speaking in an interview televised on news channel TVN24, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the United States had agreed to help augment Poland's defenses with Patriot missiles in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors in the eastern European country.

"We have crossed the Rubicon," he said, referring to U.S. consent to meet Poland's demands.

Tusk said the agreement was initialed by negotiators late Thursday in Warsaw and includes a "mutual commitment" between the two nations - beyond that of NATO - to come to each other's assistance in case of danger.

That was an obvious reference to the force and ferocity with which Russia rolled into Georgia in recent days, taking the key city of Gori and apparently burning and destroying Georgian military outposts and airfields.

The agreement still needs approval from Poland's government and a final signing from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a yet unspecified date.

Asked earlier about Tusk's comments, a U.S. official in Washington said that "it looks as if we're near agreement, and we hope to make a joint announcement today." The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal joint announcement.

A Russian lawmaker, parliamentary foreign affairs committe chairman Konstantin Kosachev, warned that the deal would worsen tensions between Moscow and Washington, which already are being strained by Russia's military offensive in Georgia.

While Washington says the defense system is meant to guard Europe against missile-armed states like Iran, the Kremlin feels it is aimed at Russia's missile force, and Kosachev told the Interfax news agency the deal will spark "a real rise in tensions in Russian-American relations."

The United States has also reached an agreement with the Czech Republic's government to place a radar component of the missile defense system in that country. That deal still needs approval from the Czech parliament.

Talking about the "mutual commitment" part of the agreement, Tusk said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be too slow in coming to Poland's defense if Poland were threatened and that the bloc would take "days, weeks to start that machinery."

"Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later - it is no good when assistance comes to dead people. Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of - knock on wood - any possible conflict," Tusk said.

"This is a step toward real security for Poland in the future," he added.

Poland and other former Soviet satellites and republics in eastern Europe have been unsettled by Russia's poweverful military incursion into Georgia.

The deal was reached after more than 18 months of back-and-forth, often terse, negotiations.

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Associated Press writer Foster Klug in Washington contributed to this report.
 
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