Agence France-Presse,
Oslo (AFP): US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced optimism Wednesday that European allies and Russia would ultimately accept a controversial US plan to station anti-missile bases in eastern Europe.
Rice, who arrived in Oslo late Wednesday for talks with her NATO and Russian counterparts, told reporters accompanying her that many of the concerns expressed by Russia and some Europeans about the project reflected Cold War era fears that were no longer relevant.
“We have to demystify some of the things that are being said about it,” Rice said of the proposal to station 10 non-explosive missile interceptors in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.
The plan is due to feature prominently during a day of talks here Thursday, among the 26 NATO allies and between NATO and Russia.
Moscow has angrily denounced the plan to base US anti-missile systems in the two former Soviet satellites as a strategic threat to Russia itself.
Washington says the system is designed to protect Europe from ballistic missile strikes by states like Iran or North Korea.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates tried to assuage Russian concerns during a visit to Moscow this week, when he renewed and expanded US offers to cooperate actively with the Russians on missile defence matters.
Russian leaders responded cooly, questioning the actual threat posed by Iran and possible future changes that could redirect the US system towards Russia.
While the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic largely support the plan — negotiations over details are continuing — the public has been wary, with recent opinion polls showing most people in both countries oppose the idea.
Rice said she was confident both the European public and the Russians could be convinced the missile shield is in their interests given the potential proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
“It's simply not possible that this could be considered a system that could in any way threaten the Russian strategic deterrent. It's just not capable of doing so,” she said.
Rice said recent intensive efforts to explain the US plan to allied governments in Europe had largely eased their concerns, and that she expected the public to follow.
“Now that there's a better understanding at official levels … that we're talking about the defence of Europe and the defence of the United States againt rogue threats, I think you'll start to see that people want to be defended,” she said. “We're going to have to talk about the facts as well as talk about people's perceptions of the system,” she said.
“Why would you leave yourself defenceless to an Iranian or North Korean missile?” she asked. “It simply doesn't make sense.”
Rice also vowed to pursue an already months-long effort to convince Russia that the program is not the kind of threat that may have been posed by anti-ballistic missile systems that targeted strategic Soviet forces in the Cold War era.
“There's probably still a bit of the perspective from the Cold War when the nature of strategic relations was one in which some believed that defences could be a part of a first strike/second strike capability,” she said.
“That's not the kind of system or the strategic environment today, but perhaps there are echos that are a bit of a hangover and we've got to get past it and look at the world as it is and not as it was,” she said, adding that the United States is “not Russia's adversary any longer.”
She also vowed to address Russian concerns “about what a possible follow-on system might look like — the so-called breakout potential.
“We're prepared to talk to them about that too, because this is against a very limited threat. That's what it's intended to be.”
