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German Concern Over Missile Shield Plans

Merkel Urges US to Consult Allies

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging the US government to engage in a broader discussion about the missile defense shield it plans to erect in Poland and the Czech Republic to protect it from enemy missiles.

AFP

Demonstrators in Prague demonstrate against the Iraq War and against the planned missile defense shield the US wants to construct in the Czech Republic.

"We should always make sure that we discuss everything in a spirit of trust to avoid rifts," Merkel said in a speech to a conference on trans-Atlantic economic cooperation in Berlin. "No one can master the new challenges on their own." She said that applied to the European Union as well as the United States. The German chancellor was in Poland on Friday and Saturday to press its leaders to back a broader discussion on the missile shield within NATO.

Merkel's remarks follow strong comments from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who said it was important not to let the US project spark a new arms race in Europe nearly two decades after the end of the Cold War.

"A missile defense system should be neither a cause of, nor a pretext for, a new arms race," Steinmeier wrote in an op-ed piece for the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"Our top priority remains disarmament and not an arms buildup," he wrote. "We don't want a new arms race in Europe."

Steinmeier, who is due to meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on Monday to discuss trans-Atlantic ties, has been one of the strongest European critics of Washington's handling of the missile shield plan.

Last month he criticized Washington for not consulting Russia on the missile project. Moscow sees it as an encroachment on its former sphere of influence and an attempt to shift the post-Cold War balance of power.

The United States intends to deploy missiles in Poland and part of a radar system in the Czech Republic to help counter a possible threat of long-range missile attacks. US officials have said the shield would counter threats from what it calls "rogue states" such as Iran and would not pose a threat to Moscow.

Meanwhile the Czech village of Trokavec, which is only 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from where the planned US radar site for the missile shield is to be based, voted against the plan in a referendum on Saturday with an overwhelming majority of 71 of the 72 votes cast.

"That's a clear signal to the government that it shouldn't negotiate without us," said Jan Neoral, the mayor of Trokavec, which is about 72 kilometers (45 miles) from the Czech capital Prague. The villagers fear that the radar system would pose a risk to public health and make them a target for attacks.

While the Trokavec vote was symbolic, peace activists have begun to organize demonstrations against Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's center-right government.

Several hundred members of a group called "No To Bases" marched through the center of Prague on Sunday. Jan Tamas, its spokesman, told the BBC that "if we want to have security, then we need to begin disarming, not creating new weapons."

According to a survey by CVVM, an independent opinion polling agency in Prague, six out of 10 Czechs are opposed to having the radar station in their country.

cro/Reuters/AP/dpa/ddp

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