Obama shelves Czech missile defence decision

Czech media reports the US president has told the East European nation he has delayed plans for a controversial missile defence system.

PRAGUE // President Barack Obama phoned the Czech prime minister to discuss a controversial missile defence system, a government spokesman said today, and Czech media reported that Mr Obama told the premier he will shelve the plan. The government spokesman Roman Prorok declined to report what Mr Obama told Prime Minister Jan Fischer and would say only that Mr Fischer later informed the Czech president Vaclav Klaus.

The Czech national news agency CTK, citing a diplomatic source it did not identify, reported that Mr Obama indicated the US intended to "withdraw from its missile defence project in the Czech Republic and Poland". Polish officials said they had no information on whether Mr Obama also phoned that country's top leaders. Mr Prorok said Ellen Tauscher, a US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, would brief Czech officials in Prague and Polish officials in Warsaw later today about Mr Obama's decision.

There have been signs that Mr Obama's administration is preparing to shelve many of the components of the missile shield proposed by the Bush administration, which called for 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic. The Bush administration had said the missile shield was a strategic way to counter a threat from Iran or another rogue state in the Middle East, but Russia was deeply angered by the prospect of having US interceptor rockets based in countries so close to its territory.

Mr Obama took office undecided about whether to continue to press for the European system and said he would study it. His administration never sounded enthusiastic about it, and European allies have been preparing for an announcement that the White House would not complete the shield as designed. "It is most probable that the US administration will unfortunately scrap the plan altogether," said Jaroslaw Gowin, a politician with Poland's ruling Civic Platform party.

"This would confirm that Central Europe is not in the centre of Obama administration's interest," he said, "but maybe the US will offer us an alternative." The Czech government had stood behind the planned radar system despite fierce opposition from the public, which has staged numerous protests over the past few years. Critics fear the Czech Republic would be targeted by terrorists if it agreed to host the radar system, which was planned for the Brdy military installation 90km south-west of Prague.

A decision to scrap the plan would have future consequences for US relations with eastern Europe. Jan Vidim, an MP with the Czech Republic's conservative Civic Democratic Party, which supported the missile defence plan, said it's "hard to imagine how unfair" it would be for Obama to cancel at this stage. "If the administration approaches us in the future with any request, I would be strongly against it," he said.

*AP