Pentagon officials to visit Ukraine for missile defence talks

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2007

KIEV (AFP) — A Pentagon delegation is to visit Ukraine next week to discuss US plans to extend an anti-missile shield into neighbouring Poland and the Czech Republic, Defence Minister Anatoly Grytsenko said Tuesday.

"To determine Ukraine's position on this matter we need detailed information on the elements of the shield that the United States plans on deploying on Polish and Czech territory," he told the Interfax news agency.

"We are counting on getting this information on March 14," he added. That is when a US team led by Lieutenant General Henry Obering, the head of the Missile Defense Agency, will arrive in the country.

Grytsenko said that US statements on the issue to date could have been more prudent and better judged.

"We could have avoided...