Poland urges Russia to back missile defenceKiev, 17 November 2010 (MIA) - Russia should embrace Western plans for missile defence because they will strengthen international security, Poland's foreign minister said on Wednesday ahead of talks between Moscow and the Western military alliance.
Radoslaw Sikorski also said that NATO's core task remained the defence of its member states and said that should not be compromised by the current U.S.-led drive to "reset" badly strained ties with Russia.
"Russia should recognise that missiles will be a major threat in the 21st century ... We in Poland believe missile defence is necessary and we are glad that the rest of NATO is coming round (to supporting it)," he said in an interview on board a government plane flying to Ukraine.
The Nov. 20 NATO-Russia meeting in Lisbon, part of a two-day summit of alliance leaders, will examine what input Moscow may have in a U.S.-backed missile defence system and will also discuss coordination on issues from Afghanistan to piracy.
The Kremlin opposed the Bush administration's plans to station elements of an ambitious missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at longer-range missiles, saying they could compromise Moscow's large nuclear arsenal.
Washington insisted the shield was for defence against threats from states such as Iran, not against Russia.
U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped the shield plans and has instead proposed smaller sea and land-based interceptors targeting shorter-range missiles, but Russia remains wary.
Asked about the chances of overcoming Moscow's concerns, Sikorski said: "The question is whether NATO will build its own system but we are not even at the planning stage yet, just at the conceptual and political stage ... So much depends on the kind of system we finally decide on and Russia's reaction."
NATO leaders are expected to agree in Lisbon to spend 200 million euros ($273 million) over 10 years on linking their existing missile defence systems and the missile interceptors and radars Washington plans to deploy in Europe.
"Poland is eyeing strong backing for the NATO MD (missile defence) after the summit," Sikorski said.
Despite Poland's efforts to mend its own ties with Russia, long strained by missile defence, NATO's eastern enlargement and historical issues, its continued distrust of Moscow two decades after the end of the Cold War was evident in Sikorski's remarks.
"While we should cooperate with Russia as much as our mutual interests require, NATO remains a military alliance whose primary mission is the protection of the territory of its member states, and that mission must be credible," he said.
"The safer all members feel, the more open they are for 'resets' and for friendly relations with non-members."
Poland, shaken by Moscow's short war with Georgia in 2008, strongly welcomed NATO's new Strategic Concept, or vision statement, which is due to be approved in Lisbon, because it reconfirms the alliance's core commitment to collective defence.
However, Russia is now Poland's second biggest trade partner -- bilateral trade reached $10 billion in the first six months of 2010 -- and, capping their rapprochement, President Dmitry Medvedev will visit Warsaw in December.
Sikorski said Poland hoped Russia would declassify more files on the Katyn massacre of Polish officers by Soviet secret services in 1940, an event that still sours relations.
Poland's previous president, Lech Kaczynski, was on his way to the Katyn site in western Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre in April when his plane crashed in thick fog, killing him and 95 others, mostly top Polish officials.
Poland's postwar reconciliation with Germany provides a model for its relations with Russia, its communist-era overlord, said Oxford-educated Sikorski.
"Katyn is very important for us. Just as Poland's reconciliation with Germany was based on setting the record straight about the recognition of historic facts, so we think it important for Russia and the character of Russia to get this issue settled," Sikorski said.
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