Earlier this month, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski invited Russian experts to discuss the deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in Warsaw.
Washington wants to place a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland, purportedly to counter a missile threat from Iran and other "rogue" states. Moscow has responded angrily to the plans, saying the European shield would destroy the strategic balance of forces and threaten Russia's national interests.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk last Sunday slammed a warning from the Russian military chief of staff that a possible U.S. anti-missile launch from Poland could provoke a Russian counterattack.
Gen. Yury Baluyevsky said that the launch of a missile from a U.S. anti-missile system in Poland could be misread by Moscow's automated missile warning systems and could trigger a counterattack by Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Russia has offered the U.S. use of radar stations at Gabala in Azerbaijan, and Armavir in south Russia, as alternatives to missile shield deployment in Central Europe. Washington said, though, it could use these radars only as additional components of the European shield.
