US gets nod to missile defence in Europe
Foreign Desk Report

BUCHAREST (Romania)—President Bush won NATO’s endorsement Thursday for his plan to build a missile defense system in Europe over Russian objections. The proposal also advanced with Czech officials announcing an agreement to install a missile tracking site for the system in their country. Despite a setback in his drive to see NATO expanded further eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia, Bush vowed not to drop the issue.
“NATO’s door must remain open to other nations in Europe that share our love for liberty and demonstrate a commitment to reform and seek to strengthen their ties with the trans-Atlantic community,” Bush said in brief remarks at an alliance meeting. “We must give other nations seeking membership a full and fair hearing.”
Fellow NATO leaders, fearing a clash with Moscow, rejected Bush’s appeal to allow the former Soviet republics to get on a path toward membership. But Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the president plans to make a new pitch before he leaves office in January. The United States expects to raise the matter at a meeting of NATO foreign minister in December, Hadley said.
The president expressed regret that NATO also declined to offer full membership at this meeting to Macedonia. The invitation was blocked by Greece, which says the country’s name implies a territorial claim to a northern region of Greece, also called Macedonia. “Macedonia’s made difficult reforms at home,” Bush said. “It is making major contributions to NATO missions abroad. The name issue needs to be resolved quickly so that Macedonia can be welcomed into NATO as soon as possible.” Albania and Croatia were invited to join the alliance, now currently at 26 members.
Progress on missile defense represented perhaps the biggest boon to Bush from the summit. Russia has strongly opposed the plan. NATO leaders were adopting a communique stating that “ballistic missile proliferation poses an increasing threat to allied forces, territory and populations.” It also will recognize “the substantial contribution to the protection of allies ... to be provided by the U.S.-led system,” according to senior American officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the statement’s release.
The statement calls on all NATO members to explore ways in which the planned U.S. project, to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, can be linked with future missile shields elsewhere. It says leaders should come up with recommendations to be considered at their next meeting in 2009, the officials said. Significantly, the document also calls on Russia to drop its objections to the system and to accept U.S. and NATO offers to cooperate on building it, the officials said.
The plan calls for 10 interceptor missiles based in Poland and a tracking radar site in the Czech Republic. At a news conference in Bucharest on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwartzenberg announced that negotiations with the Americans have been successfully completed and that a deal would be signed in early May. No U.S. official was in attendance, but the Czechs distributed a joint U.S.-Czech statement that said, “This agreement is an important step in our efforts to protect our nations and our NATO allies from the growing threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.”