By Prensa Latina,
Warsaw : Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday that an agreement with the United States to install part of the missile shield in this European country will take even longer, after a year of negotiations.
Tusk told the public television network TVP that elections in the United States and a new president taking office in that country should not delay the White House-sponsored deployment of ten batteries of intercepting missiles in his country.
The lack of consensus between the two countries has resulted from Warsaw’s demands to greenlight the US plans.
The Polish government demands that Washington invest millions of dollars, especially in the country’s aviation, as part of the reform of the Armed Forces, which joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
However, Poland’s demand was heed in part. The Pentagon barely considered the possibility of delivering one Patriot missile unit to Poland, and it would be controlled by the US command to guarantee the defense of its air space.
We will not accept any proposal without being critical, even though we are allies and a friendly atmosphere has prevailed in the talks, Tusk noted.
The US plan envisaged the deployment of that unit by 2011, but the stance taken by the liberal Polish government has delayed the program, which is backed up by the conservative president of the Czech Republic, Lech Kaczynski.
Russia opposes the program, claiming that it is a threat to national security and it will serve to spy on the country.
Washington’s reason is a hypothetical missile threat from Iran, a pretext that lacks technological foundations, according to Moscow.