Another round of the radar negotiations will be held in Prague on Wednesday when Jackson McDonald, negotiator from the U.S. Department of State, will arrive with a ten-member team.
The two side will discuss the SOFA agreement concerning the U.S. soldiers' status on Czech territory, the Czech news agency CTK reported.
The Americans who would work at the possible U.S. radar base do not want to inhabit the nearby barracks the Soviet Military abandoned in the past, which the Czech negotiators have offered them for accommodation, CTK quoted reliable diplomatic and military sources as saying.
U.S. soldiers prefer constructing their own new building. This would mean falling trees in the selected locality on the edge of the military district Brdy, southwest of Prague.
According to officials' previous statements, the radar project preliminarily reckoned with the use of the buildings situated in the vicinity of the possible radar, where Soviet military units stayed in the past.
The Czech Defense Ministry continues to prefer this alternative, according to available information.
The radar base staff is to comprise some 200 people, including 120 U.S. soldiers. The rest are to be civilians. The soldiers are to wear light arms.
The United States unveiled its plan in January to place a radar system in the Czech Republic. The plan also proposes that 10 long- range interceptors capable of shooting down missiles be stationed in Poland.
Czech and U.S. negotiators have agreed on about half of the points in the draft bilateral agreement on the possible installation of the U.S. defense radar base on Czech territory.
Source: Xinhua
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