Czech President: U.S. against deployment of Russian troops at radar base

    PRAGUE, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The United States does not plan to have any Russian troops permanently deployed at the planned U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said after a meeting of the Czech Security Council on Tuesday.

    A discussion about the presence of Russian soldiers on Czech soil started after the visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Prague last month.

    Gates talked about a possible presence of Russian experts at the U.S. base during his visit to Prague.

    "It has been a minor, very technical debate on certain, occasional, random monitoring since the beginning. There was no talk of any deployment of troops on Czech soil," Klaus said, referring to Gates' words.

    The U.S. has long declared it is open to cooperation with Russia in missile defence. Russia's top representatives strongly criticized the plans to station U.S. bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, claiming that the bases were aimed against Russia and threatened to adopt retaliatory measures.

    The Czech Republic is in talks with the United States on the missile defense plan. Washington expects that Prague will make its final decision next year.

    A recent opinion poll showed that most Czechs oppose the establishment of the base.

    Washington initiated the plan to deploy an anti-missile radar base in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland earlier this year.