US terms on missile shield plan fall short

Warsaw: Poland said yesterday recent US proposals to strengthen Polish defences in return for hosting a controversial American missile shield fell short of its demands.

Washington wants to install 10 land-based interceptors in Poland as part of an anti-missile system designed to protect the United States and its Nato allies from attack by what it calls "rogue states", especially Iran. Russia opposes the plan.

Expectations

"We have the right to set our own conditions and expectations. At the moment the US proposals have not reached a satisfactory level for Poland," Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters.

"There will be a missile shield once our conditions are met," he said, in his first public comments on the shield since US and Polish negotiators discussed the initiative last week.

Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza said yesterday the United States was increasingly frustrated by lack of progress in talks with Poland and quoted an unnamed source as saying Washington wanted to know by mid-July whether Warsaw would host the shield.

Tusk's liberal government, elected last October, wants the United States to spend billions of dollars on strengthening Polish air defences.

Strained ties

It is also concerned that a possible Democratic administration in the White House after November's US presidential election might back away from the plan, which already threatens to strain Russian-Polish relations.

The US State Department's Stephen Mull said after last week's talks that Washington would seek a different location for the interceptors if Poland declined to host them.