The United States is open to suggestions by some Europeans that a missile shield it plans to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic be made available to Nato, the top US missile defence official said on Thursday.
"What this could do from a Nato context is it could provide the long-range ... protection of a more extensive Nato missile defence capability, and we would welcome that," US Lieutenant General Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defence Agency, told reporters in Berlin.
His comments appeared aimed at reassuring countries such as Germany that have expressed concern the plan could splinter Nato and urged more consultations with Moscow, which sees the shield as an encroachment on its former sphere of influence.
Obering said such talks could help convince the Russians to accept the plan, which the US says is meant to protect Europe and US forces there from missiles fired by what Washington calls "rogue states", such Iran and North Korea. It would be a mistake for European states to underestimate the threat posed by Iran's missile programmes, Obering said.
Senior European officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, have called for the missile defence issue to be debated within the alliance rather than bilaterally.
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