PRAGUE (Thomson Financial) - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev
attacked US plans to site an anti-missile system in central and eastern Europe,
saying that it was aimed at Russia and China and not Iran.
"You believe that (the system) will be used against Iran? No, the whole
system is aimed against Russia and China," Gorbachev said in an interview
broadcast by Czech public television today.
He dismissed sustained US statements that the anti-missile system is aimed
exclusively at countering the threat from "rogue states" such as Iran.
"The US radar is a serious question and the Czech government has been
preparing to accept it for a long time without a mandate from its own citizens.
You think this is being prepared against Iran? That is total nonsense. Iran does
not present any threat. It would be possible to settle things with it in another
way if that was really required," Gorbachev said.
Gorbachev's comments echo Moscow's repeated assertions that US plans to site
a radar in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in neighbouring Poland
represent a direct threat to Russia.
Appearing on the same programme, former Czech president and dissident icon
Vaclav Havel defended the US plans and attacked local anti-radar protesters.
"The US for the first time is asking for something from us. Frequently in
the past we have made demands on it. They are asking for something small from us
and we are prevaricating," Havel said.
Anti-radar militants "are doing something just as dangerous as pacifists
before Munich," Havel added, referring to the 1938 agreement between Nazi
Germany, fascist Italy, Britain and France, under which large parts of former
Czechoslovakia were handed over to Germany and later dismantled altogether.
The centre-right Czech government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek hopes to
complete bilateral negotiations on the radar system with Washington before a
NATO summit in Bucharest next week.
Parliament must approve any deal. The government has refused to hold a
referendum on the issue, with a succession of polls showing as many as
two-thirds of Czechs opposed to a foreign base on their territory.
tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com
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