Czech pres says missile shield not aimed at Russia

...Russia.

Klaus, in Japan for talks with officials including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also said the Czech Republic had not yet made a final decision to accept the U.S. request to install a radar base as part of the system.

"The target is not Russia," Klaus told a news conference, adding that the Czech government only began discussions about the plan recently.

"It will take some period, let's say a year, to complete those decisions," he said.

Washington has asked its central European NATO ally to host a radar station, while a larger base with rockets meant to shoot down missiles that could be fired from hostile countries would be based in Poland.

The planned expansion of the shield to Europe has provoked an angry response from Russia, which says that there is no need for the United States to base part of the system in the Czech Republic and Poland to defend itself from rockets launched in Iran and North Korea, as Washington argues.

The United States has said that the shield would only protect against a small number of missiles and could not neutralise large arsenals such as that of Russia.

[TOKYO/Reuters/Finance.cz]