Obering spent two days in Ukraine this week, and after his stop in Berlin is also expected to meet with officials in France.
“He will brief the Germans on exactly what we’re doing with regard to missile defense and, of course, try to put to rest concerns about this being some sort of new arms race, which of course it is not,” a U.S. official said.
Russia has vehemently protested the U.S. plan to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic.
Obering yesterday again addressed Moscow’s concerns about the perceived threat to its strategic security.
“We are talking about no more than 10 interceptors,” he said. “They would have no effect against hundreds and thousands of warheads that the Russians have. … They are not even in a proper position if we were concerned about Russian missiles.”
Washington says the interceptors would instead provide defense against Middle Eastern missile threats.
German officials said they looking forward to meeting with Obering, but reaffirmed their belief that NATO should play a stronger role in deployment discussions, AP reported.
“It is a very complex process,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe. “There’s a lot of money involved, also a lot of technical questions … and we simply believe that such a complicated issue is best taken up through NATO” and regular NATO-Russia talks (David Rising, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, March 14).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to pursue that argument during a two-day visit to Poland beginning tomorrow, Reuters reported.
“She will argue something very important, that this can’t be done on a bilateral basis when the decisions will have consequences for other European states,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters I/Washington Post, March 15).
Obering said today that he would not be “averse” to integrating the missile defense components with NATO’s defense capabilities, Reuters reported (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters II/Yahoo!News, March 15).
Meanwhile, residents of the village of Trokavec in the Czech Republic are scheduled to vote Saturday on whether to support the radar base, which would be placed 1.2 miles from their homes, Agence France-Presse reported.
Mayor Jan Neoral, who opposes the plan, said he expects all of the roughly 88 residents to vote. It would be purely symbolic, as the government has rejected any sort of national referendum on the plan (Agence France-Presse, March 15).
Převzato z NTI
