U.S CONDUCTS NEGOTIATIONS WITH LITHUANIA ON HOSTING A MISSILE DEFENSE SITE
U.S. officials say there are no talks with Lithuania about hosting a missile defense site, even though talks with Poland’s new government have been moving more slowly than the United States would like.
But the Pentagon Spokesman says time is running out on the Bush administration and officials might be forced to move to what he calls “a backup option”. VOA’s Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.
The Pentagon and State Department spokesmen are disputing a statement attributed to Poland’s chief negotiator (Witold Waszczykowski) by the Reuters News Service. The report says the United States has opened a parallel set of talks with Lithuania in case the effort to negotiate the placement of missile interceptors in Poland fails.
But State Department Spokesman Tom Casey says recent meetings in Lithuania were only “general conversations” about the missile defense system and that the United States “expects and hopes” negotiations with Poland will succeed. He described agreement as “very close”.
Warsaw-APA
