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Officials to start radar negotiations

Multifront campaign seeks to win support for U.S. missile shield

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 5th, 2007 issue

Domestic officials are going on a “charm offensive,” with a new 15 million Kč ($740,000) ad campaign to convince Czechs to support a proposed U.S. missile defense shield.
They’re also starting “substantive political negotiations” this week with U.S. officials on missile-defense cooperation treaties between the Czech Republic and the United States, said Tomáš Klvaňa, the Czech coordinator for defense policy.
U.S. politicians have said the shield planned for this country and Poland would be meant to intercept missiles fired from countries like Iran and North Korea. Czechs currently oppose the defense shield by 60 percent or more, according to public opinion surveys done by the national polling agency STEM and others in recent months.
“Everyone interested in this project, at the end of the campaign will not be able to say he lacks information,” Klvaňa said.
The ad agency will receive 1.7 million Kč, with the rest of the money to be spent on the campaign, Klvaňa said.
At the same time, officials will meet Sept. 5 with an opposition group of mayors in the Brdy military region where the proposed site is located. On Sept. 6, the president of a U.S. missile advocacy group funded by U.S. defense contractors will announce results of a new opinion poll done by the group, called the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. The group declined to say anything more about the results before Thursday’s announcement.
“As the people of the Czech Republic and Poland understand this more, I believe that public support will grow significantly,” U.S. Congressman Trent Franks said in a recent visit to Prague to plug the project.
“They will understand that this is about protecting their children, that this is about protecting all of Europe, this is about creating a disincentive for rogue nations to build [weapons].”
U.S. leaders are ready to fund the project if Czechs agree to host a site, Franks said. Of the $9.9 billion President George W. Bush originally requested for the project, $9.3 billion has been funded, according to Franks. Congress cut $139 million from the project earlier this year.
“If our countries can come together in our planned agreements, then America will do its part in making sure that the funding that we promised is forthcoming,” Franks said.
Agreements with the two site countries are the “key element” that would give Congress the confidence to move forward with funding approvals, he said.
Local officials expect to negotiate two treaties with their U.S. counterparts, one on general cooperation, the other on how U.S. forces here would be legally governed, Klvaňa said.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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