US anti-missile shield threatens Russia: General

MOSCOW, Jan 22 (Reuters) A top Russian general today called a US plan to place an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic a ''real threat'' to Moscow, but a senior US official denied that was its purpose.

The US State Department yesterday said the two European countries had agreed to start detailed discussions with Washington on hosting anti-missile defences.

''Our analysis shows that the placing of a radio locating station in the Czech Republic and anti-missile equipment in Poland is a real threat to us,'' Russian news agencies quoted space forces commander Lt-Gen Vladimir Popovkin as saying.

But US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita that Moscow had nothing to fear.

''We believe that building infrastructure of the anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech (Republic) will significantly boost the defences of a united Europe,'' Fried said. ''I want to stress that the anti-missile system is not aimed at Russia.'' The United States is investing around 10 billion dollar a year in its Missile Defence Initiative (MDI) system, which would combine long-range radars and ballistic rockets to detect and shoot down missiles carrying nuclear, bacteriological or chemical warheads.

Fried said Washington had made a specific offer to Warsaw and Prague last week to start detailed negotiations, which he said could last for months, on hosting a part of the system.

SCEPTICISM Under the proposal, Poland could be the base for underground rocket silos and the Czech Republic would host the radar system.

The site would be the biggest element of the MDI shield outside the United States. US officials say the system will protect it and its allies from missiles that could be fired from North Korea, Iran or other ''rogue regimes''.

But Popovkin expressed scepticism that was its target. ''It's very doubtful that elements of the national US missile defence system in eastern Europe were aimed at Iranian missiles, as has been stated,'' he said.

Russia has repeatedly opposed the project and has warned Warsaw it could take unspecified measures if it is built in Poland, a former Soviet satellite that became a close US ally after overthrowing communism in 1989.

Last year, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov attacked the missile shield as an attempt to change the strategic balance between Russia and the West.

Asked if Washington was speeding up talks on the system because of tensions with nuclear proliferators, Fried said: ''I don't think we need to act under any time pressure.

Polish concerns, the conditions for building the base and the basis for our cooperation must be carefully discussed.'' Poland's parliament would have to endorse a decision to host the missiles, amid some public scepticism about the project.

Defence Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Polish television yesterday that safeguarding Poland's security would be the most important factor in the government's decision.

''I think we want to assure the Polish public that we will approach this issue very seriously,'' he said.

REUTERS LL RAI2137