Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said in a speech in parliament Friday that Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has signed an "instruction for negotiations", signalling the imminent start of talks on the missile system.

Washington has said the system, which would not be operational before 2012, would be purely defensive and aimed at thwarting incoming airborne attacks from the Middle East, and Iran in particular.

But the plan to base US missiles and a powerful radar in Russia's backyard has cast a chill over relations with Moscow, which has warned it will retaliate if it perceives the system as a threat.

"If we see that these installations, which could be set up in Europe, represent a threat, then we will definitely plan actions against them," Russian army chief of staff Yury Baluyevsky told reporters in Moscow on Monday.

The Polish prime minister said during a visit to neighbouring Slovakia Friday that the missile system "would be no threat to our eastern neighbours, particularly not Russia."

Kaczynski told reporters, after holding talks with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who is opposed to the plan, that he was convinced the shield "will have great use for the whole of Europe."

Washington has also given repeated reassurances to Russia about the system.

US State Department official Nicholas Burns, in an interview published Thursday in France's Le Monde newspaper, reiterated that Russia was not a target of the system, but also stressed that Moscow was powerless to influence the US-led project.

"I repeat, what we are planning is a preventive system, a defensive system .... These sites cannot be changed to host offensive missiles, that's not possible," Burns said, adding that Moscow should "understand that since they are not a part of NATO, they are not in a position to modify the project."

The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives has also voiced "political, economic and security concerns" over the missile shield, and earlier this month slashed 160 million dollars from the Republican administration's 310 million dollar request for the programme.

The White House warned that the cuts could jeopardise negotiations with Warsaw and Prague.

The preliminary talks between Warsaw and Washington would focus on the status of US soldiers who would be based in Poland with the missile system, Shilling said. "The first round of talks will be on the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, which deals with the status of US troops on foreign soil. Wherever the United States has forces overseas, we have a SOFA agreement in place," he said, adding the first round of talks were expected to last a few days.

The Czech Republic began similar negotiations Thursday, focusing on SOFA issues. A second round of talks from May 22 will discuss the construction, maintenance and security of the proposed radar, the defence ministry said.

"We have identified the areas in which we agree, and those which we still need to work on," the head of the US delegation, State Department official Robert Loftis, said in a statement on Friday.

Talks in Warsaw on the missile shield will be taken up a level the week of May 23, when a team led by US Assistant Secretary of State John Rood comes to Poland, Shilling said.

related report
Outside View: Europe's BMD divide
by Pyotr Goncharov
Moscow (UPI) May 11 - Europe will have to make an important decision: to accept Washington's plans of deploying missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic contrary to Russia's interests, or demand that the United States discuss the issue with Russia first.

The issue was discussed at the NATO-Russia Council on Thursday in Brussels and Russia also intends to raise the issue of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe.

NATO countries have refused to ratify the CFE treaty, demanding that Russia first withdraw from Soviet-era bases in Georgia and Moldova as stipulated by the Istanbul Agreements. Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected the argument as unsubstantiated, saying that the deployment of conventional forces in Europe is not legally connected with the Istanbul Agreements.

Russia is complying with the CFE provisions, whereas NATO countries have not even ratified it, even though they claim the treaty is the cornerstone of European security.

The planned deployment of elements of the U.S. ballistic missile system in Europe has poured more fuel onto the flames. Some time before the NATO-Russia Council meeting, Putin proposed that Russia should unilaterally suspend the implementation of the CFE treaty.

"I propose to discuss the issue at the Russia-NATO Council, and if progress is not reached in negotiations, (we may) consider the possibility of terminating our obligations under the CFE treaty," Putin said.

Washington, Brussels and the whole of Europe apparently considered the statement as Moscow's reaction to the possible deployment of American ballistic missile defense systems close to the Russian border.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Batiste Mattei said Paris hoped the CFE and ABM issues would be discussed at the forthcoming NATO-Russia Council, and called for Russia to reconsider its decision regarding the CFE treaty.

Other European politicians expressed their views more radically.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the issue of deploying the American ballistic missile shield in Europe should be decided by Europeans, who must not give a third party the right to veto actions by a sovereign state. He also expressed disappointment over Russia's stance on the CFE treaty.

In short, opinions ahead of the NATO-Russia Council meeting vary dramatically, and the only surprising thing is the absence of statements by European politicians on the ratification of the CFE treaty, which they view as the cornerstone of European security.

Their unwillingness to meet Moscow halfway can be explained by the fact that some European countries are flagrantly violating CFE provisions, whereas Russia has fewer weapons in its treaty zone than it is allowed to have. It would make sense for European countries to heed Russia's grievances over the ABM issue.

According to the Kremlin, Washington's arguments that the missile defense system is a shield from Iran and North Korea only "camouflage the system's real goals," which are "Russia and a change of the strategic balance in favor of the United States." This is the opinion of Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, Chief of Russia's General Staff, who represented Russia at the NATO-Russia Council meeting.

The situation has become more complicated after the heads of two subcommittees in the U.S. Congress criticized Washington's plans to deploy the ballistic missile defense system in Europe. Democratic members of Congress asked why the White House had discussed the issue separately with Poland and the Czech Republic instead of raising the issue in NATO if the system was aimed at protecting Europe as a whole.

Members of Congress said they respected the concern of many of their European allies over the planned deployment of the nuclear missile shield contrary to Russia's stance.

So, there are reasonable views on the ABM and CFE issues in the West. But will they be voiced at the Brussels meeting?

(Pyotr Goncharov is a political commentator for the RIA Novosti news agency. This article is reprinted by permission of the RIA Novosti news agency. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

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