(NSI News Source Info) BRUSSELS, Belgium - September 18, 2009: NATO said on Thursday it expected closer cooperation with Washington on developing anti-missile systems and that revamped U.S. plans had the potential to protect all of Europe if fully implemented. 
The United States briefed NATO allies Wednesday on the latest developments of its plan to station anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, was joined by senior State and Defense Department officials in a meeting with envoys from the 26 NATO allies. The talks come between visits to Washington by Czech and Polish leaders to discuss the plans.
President Barack Obama announced on Thursday he was dropping a plan to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.
They were to form part of a missile shield intended to protect the United States and its European NATO allies against possible attack from Iran, but which had angered Russia.
He promised instead stronger, swifter defense systems to protect U.S. allies against any threat from Iran.
A NATO spokesman said U.S. officials briefed NATO ambassadors on the U.S. plans on Thursday.
The spokesman said the defense ministers of the 28 alliance states would discuss how to move forward on missile defense in the light of U.S. plans at an October 22-23 meeting in Bratislava.
"The U.S. has briefed on an approach which has a number of phases, which, if and when the final phase were to be put in place, based on circumstance and technological development, would provide full coverage for Europe," James Appathurai said.
It also could include participation by any NATO ally, he said.
NATO has been developing its own plans for defense against short- to medium-range missiles and has in the past cooperated with Russia to ensure such systems can work with each other.
It had been considering moves to complement the scrapped U.S. system to extend the area it would have protected.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier the new U.S. approach would involve NATO to a much greater degree in establishment of missile defense.
"I highly appreciate that. I think it is in full accordance with the principle of solidarity within the alliance and the indivisibility of security in Europe," he said.
He said closer integration on missile defense would be a positive step and in the interests of "our eastern allies within the NATO alliance."
Poland and the Czech Republic are among the states of eastern and central Europe which joined NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia had been angered by U.S. plans to station an anti-missile system in those countries.
Dropping that plan should ease efforts by both NATO and the United States to boost security ties with Russia, which Rasmussen again said was a priority for the alliance.
The United States briefed NATO allies Wednesday on the latest developments of its plan to station anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, was joined by senior State and Defense Department officials in a meeting with envoys from the 26 NATO allies. The talks come between visits to Washington by Czech and Polish leaders to discuss the plans.
President Barack Obama announced on Thursday he was dropping a plan to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.
They were to form part of a missile shield intended to protect the United States and its European NATO allies against possible attack from Iran, but which had angered Russia.
He promised instead stronger, swifter defense systems to protect U.S. allies against any threat from Iran.
A NATO spokesman said U.S. officials briefed NATO ambassadors on the U.S. plans on Thursday.
The spokesman said the defense ministers of the 28 alliance states would discuss how to move forward on missile defense in the light of U.S. plans at an October 22-23 meeting in Bratislava.
"The U.S. has briefed on an approach which has a number of phases, which, if and when the final phase were to be put in place, based on circumstance and technological development, would provide full coverage for Europe," James Appathurai said.
It also could include participation by any NATO ally, he said.
NATO has been developing its own plans for defense against short- to medium-range missiles and has in the past cooperated with Russia to ensure such systems can work with each other.
It had been considering moves to complement the scrapped U.S. system to extend the area it would have protected.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier the new U.S. approach would involve NATO to a much greater degree in establishment of missile defense.
"I highly appreciate that. I think it is in full accordance with the principle of solidarity within the alliance and the indivisibility of security in Europe," he said.
He said closer integration on missile defense would be a positive step and in the interests of "our eastern allies within the NATO alliance."
Poland and the Czech Republic are among the states of eastern and central Europe which joined NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia had been angered by U.S. plans to station an anti-missile system in those countries.
Dropping that plan should ease efforts by both NATO and the United States to boost security ties with Russia, which Rasmussen again said was a priority for the alliance. The NATO chief is due to deliver a speech in Brussels on Friday in which he plans to propose concrete steps to improve NATO's ties with Moscow, which soured as a result of the alliance's eastward expansion and Moscow's military intervention into Georgia last year.
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