Following a meeting in Warsaw with U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has confirmed that his country is ready to participate in a new defense shield announced last month by the Obama administration.
Both Poland and the Czech Republic were dismayed when Washington announced last month that it was abandoning a missile shield that had been initiated by former U.S. President George W. Bush.
As the
New York Times reports the defense shield devised by the Bush administration would have seen ground-based interceptors deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic,
Al Jazeera confirming that such a deployment would principally be seen as protection against any long-range attack by Iran.
However the plans to base the interceptors in the former Soviet satellite states was not well received in Russia, which thought that the shield threatened its security.
When President Obama confirmed the abandonment of his predecessor's plan it was taken to be a move designed to help "reset" relations with Russia, the President having previously stated that improving the relationship with Moscow was an important part of his foreign policy.
But the move left Poland and the Czech Republic, members of NATO since 1999, questioning how committed the U..S. was to the security of its allies in Eastern Europe. That the White House announcement regarding the missile system coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union invading Poland at the beginning of World War Two only made matters worse.
With details of the replacement system receiving little publicity the White House supposedly acknowledged in private that they had mishandled the situation. Indeed Antony J. Blinken, national security adviser to Vice-President Biden, said:
Could we have handled it better, differently? You can always handle things better. What really created an initial problem were headlines that fundamentally misunderstood, or misrepresented, what we were doing
Nevertheless after meeting with Vice-President Biden, who will be visiting the Czech Republic and Romania before returning to Washington, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk now appears to be satisfied that the U.S. remains committed to its allies in Eastern Europe.
Accordingly Poland has now agreed to host a U.S. base which
Al Jazeera says will be equipped with SM-3 interceptors that are designed to neutralize short and medium-range missiles. Mr Tusk explained:
Poland finds the new anti-missile project as very interesting and important and, in the appropriate scale, we are ready to participate
Meanwhile Mr Biden, in welcoming Poland's agreement to participate in the new defense system and emphasizing an unwavering U.S. commitment to its fellow member of NATO, said:
Simply put, our missile plan is better security for NATO, and is better security for Poland, and ultimately better security for the United States of America
The SM-3 interceptors, that form part of a missile shield which is sea-based and land-based, are due to be deployed in Poland in 2018.
Before meeting with the Polish Prime Minister, Mr Biden had visited the monument to the victims of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto to liberate themselves from their Nazi oppressors, where he laid a wreath.
