Czech Republic and U.S. signed a historic Missile Defense framework agreement

20:57 GMT, July 9, 2008 After negotiating for more than ten years, the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg yesterday signed a historic Missile Defense framework agreement that includes the basing of the US European Midcourse Radar (EMR) in the Czech Republic.

The agreement includes 24 areas of cooperation between the two countries but its focus is on the large X band radar that will be moved from the Kwajalein Islands of the South Pacific where it has been in use for 9 years to a remote forested area located on a high hill in the Brdy Region, 90 km southwest of Prague. The EMR when deployed will be only turned on for testing and if cued by DSP satellites or other sensors that a ballistic missile is heading towards and over Europe from the Middle East region. In such cases the EMR radar tracks and discriminates very small objects in space and sends this information to an integrated command and control center as well as to the planed missile defence interceptors that are to be placed around the European region, including both land and sea based interceptors.

Just one day before this signing the Czech radio reports some details of this agreement that have been leaked to the press. According to them up to 250 American personnel shall be permitted at this site with a Czech overseer. The document also gives a two-year termination notice requirement, should either party wish to withdraw from the agreement.

This 26 nation NATO endorsed bi-lateral agreement marks a significant international achievement for the global coverage against all ranges of ballistic missiles that threaten mankind and devalues those that proliferate ballistic missiles, specifically the country of Iran.

"Freedom is our core value, Freedom has powerful enemies, one has to have the mindset to defend Freedom," stated Prime Minster of the Czech Republic Mirek Topolanek. "Missile Defense is the state of the art technology and it is the response to high technology including WMD in the hands of terrorists and enemies of our freedom. Missile Defense defends our freedom against technology."

However, efforts for a missile-defense agreement with Poland have to be continued. The meetings between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski on the issue have remained inconclusively to date. The US “Third Site” includes also the base of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland. The negotiations have been difficult, with Poland pushing for a costly U.S. upgrade of its air defense system as the price for accepting the interceptor missiles.

"We are continuing to work on these negotiations," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "We didn't conclude them in time for the beginning of the secretary's travel. That doesn't mean we're not going to keep working on it. It's an important issue for Poland. It's an important issue for the United States, and it's an important issue for NATO as well NATO has given its endorsement of this missile defense effort so we're going to continue working on it."