By RIA Novosti
Warsaw : Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has criticised the chief of Russian army staff for his warning that a possible US anti-missile fire from Poland could provoke a Russian counterattack.
“Statements of this kind are impermissible because no general is going to influence Polish-US negotiations on the issue (the US missile defence shield in Central Europe),” Tusk said Sunday following the comments by chief of the Russian General Staff Yury Baluyevsky.
The Russian top military official said Saturday that the launch of a missile from a US anti-missile system in Poland could be misread by Moscow’s automated missile warning systems and could trigger a counterattack by Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The US wants to install a radar system in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland purportedly to counter any missile fired from Iran and other “rogue” states.
Russia has been objecting the plans, saying the anti-missile defence shield in Central European would destroy the strategic balance of forces and threaten its national interests.
As an alternative to the missile shield, Russia has offered the US to use radar stations at Gabala in Azerbaijan, and Armavir in south Russia. But the US said it could use those radars only as additional components of the European shield.