WARSAW, April 21 (RIA Novosti) - The president of the United States will visit the Czech Republic June 4-5 and Poland June 8 for negotiations on Washington's missile shield plans, the local media said.
George Bush will travel to these Central European nations to discuss deployment of a radar facility in the Czech Republic and a missile base in Poland as part of the American missile shield designed to counter possible attacks from Iran and North Korea.
The Czech government decided March 28 to start the negotiations with the United States over the issue. Preparations for Bush's visit were discussed at a Friday meeting between Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, the Czech news agency CTK said.
At the meeting, Rice told Schwarzenberg that the U.S. was also conducting bilateral talks over the missile shield with Poland, NATO and Russia.
Bush will fly to Poland after attending a summit of the world's leading industrial nations, the Group of Eight, in Germany June 6-8. Poland's Rzeczpospolita newspaper said the American leader would meet with President Lech Kaczynski in his residence on the Baltic Sea coast to discuss the conditions on which elements on the U.S. missile defense system could be deployed in Poland.
Moscow has been strongly opposed to the U.S. plans, saying they would threaten Russia's security and destroy the strategic balance of forces in Europe. President Vladimir Putin has promised Russia would revise its military strategy.
Following a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer moved to allay Russia's anxiety and said the placement of the U.S. missile shield would not change the strategic balance because Washington proposed to deploy only ten missile interceptors.
Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, said Tuesday that Washington was ready to allow Russian experts to inspect the likely missile site in Poland to show that it posed no threat to Moscow.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Moscow and Warsaw next week, and Secretary of State Rice will be in Russia in May. Czech President Vaclav Klaus is expected in Russia April 26-29 at the invitation of President Putin, the Kremlin press service said Friday.
