Klaus admitted that the radar supporters can only with difficulties react to some argument and objections expressed by Russia. Klaus also said Czech-Russian CzechRep playground of Russian-speaking mafias, spies - press ...
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He criticised that they "are becoming flatter." "Russians do not believe our assurances, they do not believe what [U.S.] President [George] Bush and others say. They just look at where the radar aims, and they can see it is aimed at their territory. We have simply failed to explain to them that we do not view it as an operation aimed against them," said Klaus. He commented on Russian criticism of the plans to station a radar base in the Czech Republic along with a base with ten interceptor missiles in Poland within the U.S. missile defence shield. U.S. representatives and Czech government politicians claim that these Central European elements are to protect the United States and a large part of the European continent against missiles that states like Iran and North Korea might launch. The United States and Poland today signed a treaty on the stationing of a U.S. missile defence base in Poland. U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice and her Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg signed the main treaty on a U.S. radar on Czech soil in early July. Te treaties are yet to be ratified by the Czech and Polish parliaments. However, Moscow keeps claiming that the U.S. bases are to be aimed at targets in Russia. Klaus indicated in the interview that it would be difficult to find arguments to Russian questions whether the possible North Korean missiles would fly to the United States across the whole of Russia, Europe and the Atlantic Ocean or across the Pacific. Commenting on Czech-Russian relations, Klaus said both countries have different opinions about various matters, which is normal. "Let us have normal, formally peaceful, perfect relations. This is exactly what I am striving for," Klaus told the radio station. Klaus has recently got into dispute with the Czech government over his view of Russia in the escalating Russian-Georgian conflict. Klaus said Georgia was primarily to blame for the conflict. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek criticised Klaus's opinion. Unlike Klaus, the government members have compared the Russian military intervention in Georgia with the August 1968 Warsaw Pact troops' invasion of Czechoslovakia of which 40 years will pass on Thursday.
(Ceske Noviny)
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