The bilateral SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) treaty, which specifies conditions for the deployment of U.S. troops at a planned radar base on Czech soil, will be completed next month, Czech Defense Minister Vlasta Parkanova said Thursday.
Only the details are being negotiated now and the treaty should be ready in September, Czech news agency CTK quoted Parkanova as saying.
"I dare to claim that we will not only complete the talks (on SOFA) during September, but we will also debate it in the government. If the prime minister agrees with it, we will send the treatise to parliament," she said.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who met with Parkanova on Thursday, said the Czech parliament may deal with the treaty in October.
The two sides are still discussing the level of U.S. aid in Czech military upgrading, Topolanek added.
"It concerns some details that can be resolved quite easily. I do not think there is a fundamental problem," he said.
The United States plans to build a radar base in the Czech Republic, along with an interceptor missile base in Poland, as part of its East European missile defense shield.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg signed the main treaty on the base in early July.
Russia is strongly opposed to the deployment of the system, saying it poses a threat to its national security. Czech opposition parties and some 70 percent of the country's citizens also oppose the project.
The radar treaties are yet to be ratified by the Czech parliament. It is not clear whether the government will muster enough votes for the treaty's ratification in parliament.
Source:Xinhua
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