POLES CLAIM VINDICATION
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Medvedev's move vindicated Warsaw's plan to station U.S. Patriot missiles on its soil, a deployment it persuaded Washington to make in return for its agreement to host part of the shield system.Medvedev's plan "just shows that our decision to protect our air space with U.S. help is a correct one,"Sikorski told the Polish parliament.Under proposed confidence-building measures, Sikorski said Russia could send inspectors to bases in Poland on condition that Moscow also allows Polish inspectors into Russian bases.Both the U.S. and Polish legislatures have still to ratify the accord on the missile defense shield.Sikorski said Poland and the United States were pressing on with negotiations on the logistical aspects of the deal without waiting for President-elect Barack Obama to take office.Earlier this week, Sikorski said Obama had told him two months ago that he had concerns over the missile defense shield's effectiveness and whether it was not directed against Russia. But Sikorski said he expected Obama to push ahead with the system once he had secured reassurances over its aims.Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a Moscow foreign ministry source as saying Russia would study Washington's proposals on the missile shield and on how to find a replacement for a key nuclear arms reduction treaty.Russia wants to find a replacement for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which set ceilings on the size of Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals but expires in December 2008."We have received these proposals and we will study them," Interfax news agency quoted the unidentified source as saying.
As in the days of Noah....