Polish Doubts Put Us Defence System in Jeopardy

Poland and Russia engaged in their first direct talks today over the Pentagon's divisive plans to install missile defense systems in central Europe.

The talks took place amid multiplying signs that the project could unravel because of political shifts in the US, Poland and the Czech republic.

Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Kislyak, went to Warsaw to warn the Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, of the "strategic dangers" posed by the project.

The Kremlin is bitterly opposed to the installation of the defense systems and is threatening a new arms race if they go ahead.

Over the past week a flurry of coordinated statements from the new liberal government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw has signaled the mounting troubles engulfing the project.

Poland is voicing strong reservations about the US plans, demanding security guarantees and beefed up air defense hardware from Washington, worried that the deployment of interceptor missile silos on Polish territory could jeopardize rather than enhance Polish security.

The project's prospects have also been thrown into uncertainty by the change of administration in Washington in a year's time, with the Poles and the Czechs seeking but not yet obtaining assurances from the US Democrats on their position on the controversial missile shield.

"The worst-case scenario is that we incur the wrath of the Russians and then the US changes its mind," said a Polish government official.

"We need to make sure that missile defense will continue under any US administration," said Jiri Schneider, an expert at Prague's Security Studies Institute.

While Kislyak was in Warsaw to negotiate for the first time with the Poles after a year of worsening tension between the two nations over the shield, the Polish prime minister was in Prague to try to strike a common Polish-Czech bargaining position towards Washington.

The US hopes to install radar facilities at a sprawling military base south of Prague, while stationing 10 interceptor rockets in Poland.

Despite increasing public opposition to the project among Czechs - rising to 70% in a survey this week - the Czech government is now keener than its Polish counterpart to strike a quick deal with the Americans.

The Czechs want the missile shield agreed by April, fearing that if there is no prompt deal, the $3.5bn (£1.8bn) project will be shelved until after November's presidential election in the US.

Czech officials, who privately dismiss the Polish criticisms of the project as tactical posturing, are also anxious that if the Polish demands cause a breakdown with Washington, the Americans will go it alone with "national" missile defense, causing transatlantic tensions within the Nato alliance and undermining European security.

Poland, by contrast, is in no rush to strike a deal and may choose to wait until the dust settles in post-election America.

The facilities would be the first US military installations in the two former Warsaw pact countries in central Europe, sparking outrage in Moscow.

The Americans insist the shield is not directed at Russia, but at Iran and other emerging proliferation threats and that the first missile shield facilities in Europe would help protect Europe against rogue missile attacks.

For the first time this week, Poland, an eager but increasingly disenchanted US loyalist, flatly contradicted Washington's claims.

"This is an American, not a Polish project," said Sikorski. "We feel no threat from Iran."

Prime Minister Tusk added: "the shield is supposed to defend America, not Poland."

Bogdan Klich, the new Polish defense minister, is to press Warsaw's demands at the Pentagon on Monday.

He told Reuters this week that "the Polish government's consent for the American installation is really difficult to imagine" without solid US security guarantees to Poland.

The previous nationalist government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Warsaw was passionately pro-American and anti-Russian.

Poland's hosting of the Russian minister for talks and its criticism of the US herald a sea change on the missile shield.

Sikorski, the new foreign minister, has long been a critic of the terms of the US offer. He resigned as defense minister in the Kaczynski government after being rebuffed by the Pentagon when demanding a billion dollars worth of air defense equipment, according to diplomatic sources.