BRUSSELS, March 7 (UPI) -- The head of the NATO alliance this week sought to reassure Russia that new ballistic missile defense bases were not aimed against it.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said on Monday that both NATO and the U.S. government had shown "maximum transparency" on their reasons and plans for building new BMD installations in Central Europe to the Russian government, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The Bush administration wants to build a new radar installation in the Czech Republic that would track and target threatening ballistic missiles fired from so-called "rogue" states such as Iran and North Korea. The anti-ballistic missiles to destroy them would be fired from another new base planned to be built in Poland over the next five years.
However, the plans have infuriated the Kremlin and senior Russian officials have said the installations are really aimed against them. The issue took center stage when Russian President Vladimir Putin made a scathing attack on U.S. foreign policy at the 43rd Munich Security Policy Conference on Feb. 10.
