Thursday September 11, 02:33 PM
Obama says missile shield cannot target Russia - Poland's Sikorski
WARSAW (Thomson Financial) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he will only proceed with installing a U.S. missile shield base in Poland if it does not target Russia, Poland's foreign minister said Thursday.
'In talks with me, senator Obama made the realisation of our (missile shield) agreement conditional on whether he will be certain that the system is not aimed against Russia,' Radoslaw Sikorski said at a joint press conference in Warsaw with Russian counterpart Sergei Larvov.
'In a mini-military briefing given before yesterday to senator McCain in which I participated, I can say that what the candidate was told about the purpose of the (missile shield) system has nothing to do with Russia,' Sikorski said of a consultation with the Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
'So we hope that Russian fears over this agreement, will dissipate with time,' Sikorski said.
'We do not see any threat from Poland, but we have said there are risks to the security of the Russian Federation that are occurring as a result of American infrastructure coming closer to our borders,' Lavrov said.
The visit is the first to an EU member state by a senior Russian official since Russia's war with Georgia in August.
In an article published in Polish news media Thursday, Lavrov said the U.S. missile shield planned for Poland and the Czech Republic targets Russia, rather than any potential threat from Iran.
'A simple military analysis proves that a U.S. base in Europe for global anti-missile defence has no other, and for many years will have no other, target but Russian missiles,' Lavrov wrote in the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.
'All objective experts understand that Iran's missiles pose no threat to Europe and even less to the United States.'
Poland and the United States signed a deal on August 14 to base part of a U.S. missile shield in Poland, in the face of Moscow's vehement opposition and mounting East-West tensions over Georgia.
Washington plans to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland plus a radar facility in the neighbouring Czech Republic by 2011-2013 to complete a system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain.
The United States contends that the shield -- endorsed by NATO leaders in February -- is to fend off potential missile attacks by 'rogue states' such as Iran, and that it is not aimed at Russia.
The Kremlin, however, regards it as a grave security threat and on Wednesday threatened to aim its own missiles at the planned U.S. missile shield sites in Europe.
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