Mon 22 February 2010 | 08:48 GMT Text size:

Turkey refused to conclude a bilateral agreement on dislocation of anti-missile radar with the United States.

This radar was intended for tracing Iran and for replacing a similar object that had earlier been offered to install in the Czech Republic.

According to Newsru, Ankara demands the radar installation to receive support "including financial, from the part of other NATO states", British Financial Times says.

According to Newsru, Turkey tends to maintain balanced relations both with the United States and Iran, therefore, it does not want the radar dislocation to be viewed as a bilateral deal targeting Tehran. "Turkey considers that in case of displacement of a radar in its territory, it must become a part of the overall missile defense system of the North Atlantic Alliance financed from the NATO budget", ITAR-TASS reports.

Turkey, as a country located in Europe and Middle East, is "very sensitive about this issue", US Assistant Defense Secretary on International Security Alexander Vershbow has said. "However, I think that our efforts aimed at introducing this system into a wider structure of NATO were welcomed", Vershbow said.

Today the United States have two position regions for the missile defense-in Alaska and California. In case with Europe this implies the creation of the third position anti-missile bloc earlier planned in Poland and Czechia. The idea was disavowed under Russia's pressure and in the result of change of powers in US.

1news.az