Agence France-Presse, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek on June 5 said his country should benefit from U.S. technology if part of an American anti-missile defense system is set up on Czech soil.
“The United States is the world’s innovation leader. It is dominant in science. I exaggerate perhaps, but this cooperation in technology, in science, in innovation, is in some way our condition for the construction of the anti-missile defence system on our territory,” Topolanek said during a joint news conference with U.S. President George W. Bush and his Czech counterpart, Vaclav Klaus. “We see this as very important not only for anti-missile defence in itself but also for relations between the Czech Republic and the United States.”
Washington formally asked Prague and Warsaw in January to participate in the rollout of its anti-missile defense system in Central Europe.
The Czech Republic was asked to host a tracking radar while 10 interceptor missiles are earmarked for neighboring Poland.
President Bush made Prague the first stop on a six-nation European tour which will also include the G-8 summit in Germany and a visit to Poland.
Opinion polls show around two-thirds of Czechs are opposed to locating the U.S. base on their soil.
“We have warned our guest that it is very important to gain maximum support from Czech public opinion which is very sensitive,” Klaus declared during the news conference. “It is very important that President Bush has promised to make the maximum effort to explain [the program] to Russia.”
The extension of the U.S. anti-missile shield to the former two Soviet satellite countries has created anger in Russia with Moscow threatening to point its missiles at Europe if the project goes ahead.
Bilateral negotiations between Prague and Washington over the radar base should continue for several months before the two sides might be ready to sign an agreement next year.
During preliminary negotiations in May, the Czechs called for assurances that top army officers be allowed at the base and that the radar’s images be supplied on-line to it and NATO headquarters.
