Bush prods Nato for missile nod

Bucharest: US President George Bush expresses confidence Nato will endorse a missile defence system for Europe that Russia has opposed.

"I'm optimistic that this is a going to be a very successful summit," Bush said, sitting alongside Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer hours before the 26-nation military alliance opened three days of meetings with a leaders' dinner.

The summit has been troubled by divisions, most notably opposition from France and Germany to giving Ukraine and Georgia a plan for eventually joining Nato. Bush indicated that was an open question because any Nato member can block it.

"We'll see," he said, saying one country was still an issue.

Meanwhile, Poland's Defence Minister Bogdan Klich rapped unidentifdied Nato states for their lack of interest in having a missile shield deployed in Europe that would match one planned by the United States.

"For the moment, I don't see sufficient political or financial will in some Nato states to put in place a continental missile system under the Nato banner that will compliment the US missile shield," Klich said in Warsaw. He would not identify the countries.

'Rogue' states

"We will try to convince our partners to pursue work on a Nato missile shield," Klich said as he was leaving for the Nato summit.

"I mean the TBMD (Tactical Ballistic Missile Defence) system against short and medium range missiles proposed at the 2002 Nato summit in Prague and approved at the 2006 summit in Riga," he said.

Washington is in talks with Warsaw to install a missile shield consisting of 10 silos on Polish soil and a high-power tracking radar in the neighbouring Czech Republic by 2012.

The United States insists the project is designed to ward off attacks by so-called "rogue" states, notably Iran. But using high-pitched rhetoric last heard during the Cold War, Russia has blasted it as a grave threat to its national security and threatened to point its warheads at Poland should it accept the system.

"The two systems, the US missile shield and the continental shield must be complimentary and work in cooperation," Klich said.

Opinion polls show a majority of Poles also object to the US missile shield plan over concerns it could make Poland a target of attacks by extremists.

Bush said the West should reward democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia by giving both countries the prospect of joining Nato, although Russia has opposed this.

"My country's position is clear - Nato should welcome Georgia and Ukraine into the Membership Action Plan," he said, referring to a programme which is a gateway to membership.

France and Germany, backed by several smaller countries, have said Ukraine and Georgia do not meet Nato's criteria and the decision would be an unnecessary provocation to Moscow just before President-elect Dmitry Medvedev takes office.

At stake is whether Nato pushes its European borders right up to the frontiers of Russia, with the exception of Belarus, or leaves a strategic buffer zone as the Kremlin wishes. Scheffer left the scope, timing and nature of planned expansion vague in a speech to youth leaders from alliance countries.