Prague - US Vice President Joe Biden sought to mend US-Czech ties after the White House dropped Bush-era plans for military bases in Eastern Europe, urging Czechs Friday to take part in a new NATO-wide missile defence system. "The prime minister and I talked about NATO's commitment to produce a new strategic concept which will adapt our alliance to the threats of the 21st century," Biden said after meeting Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer.
"I urged the prime minister to make sure that the final product has a distinctly Czech accent," he added.
US President Barack Obama decided to replace a planned missile shield championed by his predecessor, George W Bush, which involved building bases in the Czech Republic and Poland, with a mobile system for protecting Europe.
Fischer said that the Czech Republic was ready to play a role in the new project. But the vagueness of Biden's words also signaled that he was not in Prague to make a specific offer and was leaving the initiative up to the Czechs.
"The Czech Republic stepped up and did their part in the previous missile defence plan," he said in reference to the ditched Bush-era project, which counted on a radar station in the Czech Republic and a silo with 10 interceptor missiles in Poland designed to protect Europe from potential Iranian long-range missiles.
"Today we discussed the potential the Czech Republic could play in a new architecture, a better architecture, an architecture that actually has a capacity to protect Europe," he said.
A high-level defence team was planned to travel for talks in Prague in early November, Biden said.
Obama's decision to cancel the earlier plan sparked anxiety across the region and disappointed Atlanticist Czech politicians who bet their political careers on supporting the US facility.
Some of them, including former Czech premier Mirek Topolanek, expressed concern that Obama was skipping the region in an effort to improve ties with an increasingly assertive Russia, which saw the missile shield project as a security threat.
After Biden's meeting with leading Czech politicians, Topolanek gave his backing to the revamped missile defence project, which is to protect the old continent from short and medium-range missiles.
But he was also unconvinced by Obama's arguments for scrapping the Bush-era Europe shield - a reduction of the Iranian long-range missile threat. "I worry that it will be very soon clear that the system against the long-range missiles will have to be implemented too," he said.
During his three-day Eastern Europe tour ending in Prague on Friday, which also took him to Warsaw and Bucharest, Biden sought to heal strained relations and obtain support for the new plan.
Czech Senator Alexandr Vondra, who participated in Biden's meeting with Czech politicians, told Czech Television that the US vice president apologized for Obama's overnight, September 17 phone call, in which he informed Fischer that Washington was discarding the Bush-era project.
The manner in which the US president relayed the news has also irked supporters of the scrapped US radar base among the Czech politicians.
Before reporters, Biden also praised Czechs for deploying troops to military missions abroad, such as in Afghanistan, and for their performance in NATO, which they joined 10 years ago.
