US and Poland sign missile-shield deal

By Isabel Gorst in Moscow, Daniel Dombey in Washington and Reuters
The United States and Poland signed a deal in Warsaw on Wednesday to station elements of a US missile defence shield on Polish soil, in a move accelerated by Moscow’s intervention in Georgia but billed as not targeting Russia.

The site in Poland hosting 10 interceptor rockets, and a giant radar in the neighbouring Czech Republic, will form the European part of a global system that Washington says it is assembling to shoot down ballistic missiles it fears could be launched by ”rogue” states such as Iran or terrorist groups.

Moscow reacted angrily to Wednesday’s move. Although Washington maintains that the interceptors would have no impact on the Russian nuclear deterrent, the Kremlin has long campaigned against the Polish base and the accompanying Czech facility.

Russia’s foreign ministry said that Moscow would “have to react” to the agreement “and not only through diplomatic protests”, according to Reuters news agency.

Some Russian politicians and generals have said Poland must be prepared for a preventive attack on the site in the future. Washington has dismissed such threats as empty rhetoric, while Poland called on the US to provide it with Patriot missiles to help counteract such a threat.

The Bush administration agreed after the outbreak of the Russian-Georgian conflict to station a Patriot missile battery in Poland full-time.

According to Wednesday’s declaration on Polish-US strategic co-operation, signed by Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, and Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, a garrison to support the Patriot missiles will be set up by 2012.

Ms Rice said of the missile-shield deal with Poland: ”This is an agreement that will establish a missile defence site here in Poland that will help us to deal with the new threats of the 21st century, of long-range missiles . . . from countries like Iran or North Korea.”

Russia sees the prospect of placing the shield in parts of central Europe that it used to control as a threat to its security. Moscow says the deal’s additional provision for US co-operation in the event of an attack on Poland by third states, and its conclusion after the intervention in Georgia, shows it is aimed at Russia.

The missile-shield deal will now need to be approved by the Polish parliament, which is seen as a formality because the government and main opposition party support it.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008