US-Russia tensions rise over antimissile bases

A top advisor to President Bush left for Moscow Tuesday to deal with rising tensions between the US and Russia over American plans to build missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The International Herald Tribune reports that national security advisor Stephen Hadley set out for talks in Moscow just a day after a Russian general warned that Poland and the Czech Republic could become targets if they played host to US antimissile bases, meant to defend against Iranian ballistic missiles.

The trip by the adviser, Stephen Hadley, was planned weeks ago. But it now comes in the context of the harsh Russian words about the antimissile plan, the earlier stinging denunciation of U.S. policy by [Russian] President Vladimir Putin, and the underlying Russian suggestion that a hidden American agenda is designed to expand its influence in Eastern Europe.

Comments earlier this month by Mr. Putin were hostile to the US missile defense plan, saying that American plans to build such a shield had "overstepped its national boundaries in every way."

RIA Novosti reports that those American antimissle bases could prompt Russia to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) that the US and USSR signed in 1987. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, said Tuesday that "If a political decision is taken to quit the treaty, the Strategic Missile Forces are ready to carry out this task." RIA Novosti adds that Mr. Solovtsov's comments were not the first time that Russia has publicly mentioned leaving the treaty.

Army General Yury Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian General Staff, said last February 15 that Moscow might unilaterally abandon the treaty.

"It is possible for a party to abandon the treaty [unilaterally] if it provides convincing evidence that it is necessary to do so," said Baluyevsky. "We currently have such evidence."

The INF treaty eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles). By the treaty's deadline of June 1, 1991, a total of 2,692 such weapons had been destroyed, 846 by the U.S. and 1,846 by the Soviet Union.

The Associated Press reports that Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski dismissed the Russian threat as "an attempt to frighten" Poland, saying Russia's stance is not about security, but rather about influence.

"To make it clear - this is not about Russian security; these installations do not in any way threaten Russia," Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on state Radio 1. "It's about the status of Poland and Russian hopes that the zone, in other words Poland, will once again find itself ... in the Russian sphere of influence."

"From the moment the missile bases are installed here, the chances of that happening, for at least decades to come, very much declines," he said.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg similarly dismissed Russian comments, calling them "blackmail," reports Reuters.

"The Czechs will now think the shield is even more necessary," Schwarzenberg told Reuters on the sidelines of a business conference in Warsaw.

"We have quite an experience with Russians. You have to make clear to them you won't succumb to blackmail. Once you give in to blackmail, there's no going back. We have to be strong."

However, the Guardian reports that while the center-right, pro-American governments of Poland and the Czech Republic support the missile defense plan, "some opposition parties are against the plan and polls in recent weeks suggest that up to two-thirds of Poles and Czechs oppose their country taking part."

There is concern among some that greater ties with the US will increase the threat of domestic terrorism. A recent poll showed that 53% of Poles opposed hosting a base, while 34% were in favour.

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