WARSAW, October 11 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. has not yet officially proposed to Poland that American missile defense elements be deployed on the European country's territory, the Polish defense minister said Wednesday.
The United States has ambitious plans to deploy a network of anti-missile systems across the world to protect itself and its allies from threats from countries such as Iran and North Korea, and there has been speculation they would be based in at least two former Communist-bloc countries, which Russia sees as a threat to its national security.
Sergei Ivanov, Russia's defense minister, said Tuesday: "The announced purpose [of the deployment] is the interception of Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have never existed and will not exist in the near future."
"The Polish government has not yet received an official offer on the deployment of this system on Polish territory," Radoslaw Sikorski told RIA Novosti Wednesday.
It was announced in September that the 26 NATO member countries completed a feasibility study on a common missile defense system and reached the conclusion that a missile defense for Europe is possible.
NATO apparently has to make up its mind now whether to join the U.S. deployment project or not, and if not, the U.S. will discuss the issue with NATO members on a bilateral basis.
The Polish minister said such a system could "protect Europe's territory from separate missile launches from the territory of some unpredictable states."
"The classic example of an unpredictable state is North Korea," Sikorski said.
Pyongyang claimed Monday that it successfully conducted its first ever nuclear weapons test, drawing a chorus of international condemnation even from traditional allies, such as China.
Sikorski said missile defense systems are capable of ensuring the security of neighboring states. "Of course we are discussing with neighboring countries the hypothetical possibility that such a system will be deployed on Polish territory," he said.
Polish presidential aide Andrzej Krawczyk said the possible deployment of U.S. missile defense system elements in Poland does not threaten Russia in any way.
"As far as I know, even if missile launchers are deployed, they are not designed for short- or intermediate-range missiles, but for long-range missiles, and this system does not threaten Russia at all," he told Russian journalists.
Besides, Krawczyk said, no decisions have been made so far. He said the system has been under construction for five or six years, and that Russia has until now not protested, until it was announced a few months ago that part of the missile defense system's elements could be deployed on Polish territory.
As of today, he said, Russia's protests are "pointless, because it is still unclear whether the installation will be in Poland and if it will be a missile launcher or just a radar."
Krawczyk said the idea of an American missile defense system appeared in 1999, and was developed to protect the U.S. and NATO countries "from missiles of the so-called unpredictable states, in particular, North Korea and Iran."
He said elements of this universal protection should be located in England, in Alaska, in the western states of the U.S. and in Central Europe - either in Slovakia, Poland or in the Czech Republic.
At the same time, the Polish president's aide said there is good news for Russia.
"The U.S. Congress recently cut by 40% the allocation of funds for missile defense, and the American military is complaining that it will be hard for them to create a missile defense system with so little. So this issue might stop being urgent," Krawczyk said.
