WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Pentagon said Wednesday its negotiations to install US missile defenses in eastern Europe are on track but denied a Russian charge that they were being accelerated.
"We are very much on course and wish to come to agreements with the Czech Republic and Poland as soon as possible, so we can begin building and installing this system," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.
"But I have no sense that this is in any way being expedited."
Gates hopes to wrap up the negotiations by the end of the year, although the Czechs have said they may not conclude until early next year.
The US plan calls for installing a powerful targeting radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland by 2012.
Morrell's comments followed accusations by Russian foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin that Washington was not taking seriously a Russian counterproposal on missile defense.
Kamynin said Washington not only had not acceded to a Russian demand that the negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic be frozen, "but additional measures are being taken to speed them up."
"There is the impression that the United States is trying to make the realization of its plans irreversible," Kamynin said in a statement.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters last week that the US side has gone as far as it could to allay Russian concerns about the missile defense system, and the ball was now in the Russians' court.
Morrell reaffirmed that position Wednesday, telling reporters: "You will not be seeing additional proposals coming from the secretary until there is movement from the Russian side."
During a visit to Moscow earlier this month, Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presented Russian President Vladimir Putin with ideas for integrating Russia into a broad European missile defense system.
Russian Defense Minister Viktor Serdyukov said last week that the US proposals were not enough to satisfy Russian concerns.
Russia sees the US missile defense plans as a military encroachment in its former sphere of influence that could be turned against Russia's own nuclear deterrence.
The US side insists it poses no threat to the Russians, only to a looming missile threat from Iran.
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