US missile shield must not split Europe, Steinmeier warns

Mar 17, 2007, 15:15 GMT

Berlin - Plans by the United States to station parts of its missile shield in Eastern Europe must not spark a new arms race and should not be allowed to split Europe, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said.

Writing in the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, Steinmeier said the system of interceptor missiles and tracking stations planned for Poland and the Czech Republic should not be the cause of a new round of rearmament nor the pretext for one.

'We do not want a new arms race in Europe,' the German foreign minister says, noting that no missile shield could offer total protection.

'Our highest priority remains disarmament not rearmament,' he says, urging that security should not be achieved 'at the price of mistrust or even renewed insecurity.'

Steinmeier called on Washington and Moscow to overcome 'obsolete ways of thinking about confrontation.'

The German foreign minister expressed understanding for the US desire to be prepared for the possibility that Iran could construct long-range missiles in the future, but he stressed that NATO and the European Union had to be involved in the debate.

And he called on Iran to renounce nuclear weapons and the construction of long-range missiles.

US plans to to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and build a radar tracking station in the Czech Republic have provoked an angry response from Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the project as a threat to Moscow's security and said Russia would counter the defence shield with a similar system.

The US maintains the 10 missiles would be irrelevant in the face of Russia's large arsenal.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the issue should be decided by NATO. She is reported to have discussed the missile shield with President Lech Kaczynski during her visit to Poland that ended Saturday.