Source: Global Security Newswire, 6 December 2013
Work on the evolving NATO missile shield will proceed regardless of progress made in negotiations with Iran on its nuclear programme, the White House said on Thursday.
"Our plans regarding missile defence in Europe and our commitment to EPAA as the US contribution to NATO missile defence remain unchanged," National Security Council spokeswoman Laura Lucas Magnuson told Foreign Policy. She was referring to the European Phased Adaptive Approach, which involves the step-by-step fielding in coming years of sea- and land-based missile interceptors around Europe.
Iran agreed last month to temporarily freeze and roll back some of its nuclear-weapon applicable activities in return for the easing of some sanctions while a more permanent arrangement on its atomic programme is worked out with Western powers. As NATO member states frequently point to Tehran's nuclear work as justification for their establishment of an alliance-wide missile shield, Russia has argued that continued progress on the Iranian front means the alliance can stop building the antimissile framework.
"If the Iranian nuclear programme is placed under the complete and tight control of the [International Atomic Energy Agency], the reasons that are now given for the creation of the European segment of the missile defence system will become invalid," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday after a meeting with NATO member states' foreign policy chiefs.
Moscow has long opposed the missile shield, seeing it as a threat to nuclear stability in Europe. Russian leaders have warned they may take military countermeasures against the programme if their concerns go unresolved.
A senior State Department official briefing reporters about the NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels said Lavrov's argument that a missile shield was no longer needed was "strongly disputed" by all NATO countries in attendance.
At least one NATO government has suggested, however, that it does see progress on negotiations with Iran affecting missile defence in Europe.
"One thing is obvious, that there is a connection here," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said after the meeting.
During a two-way meeting with Lavrov on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry "went over again the fact it is not only about Iran’s nuclear programme, it’s also about its ballistic missile program, which allows it to deliver other forms of WMD as well, and that is concerning and requiring of strong missile defence protections," the unidentified State official said.