Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk and US Vice President Dick Cheney discussed US plans to install a missile shield in Poland in a telephone conversation Thursday, the Polish government said.
"Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke with American Vice President Dick Cheney. The talk lasted 40 minutes and was about the current state of the Polish-American negotiations on an anti-missile shield system," a statement said without elaborating.
Polish media said earlier that Tusk's government was not satisfied with Washington's proposals in a first round of talks earlier this week in Washington between the State Department's disarmament expert John Rood and two Polish junior ministers.
The conversation between Tusk and Cheney was planned after a senior US State Department official who asked not to be named told AFP that a "tentative agreement" had been reached following the two days of talks between Polish and US officials.
"At this point, I am really happy that we made real good progress in the past few days," the unnamed official said.
But Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich countered the claim Thursday in Warsaw, saying no agreement had yet been reached to station the proposed US missile shield on the territory of the ex-communist NATO member.
"The negotiations have not ended -- another round of talks was concluded. For the time being we are not at the finish line," Klich told Poland's commercial Radio Zet.
"We completed an important, a significant, round of talks two days ago but the finish line of talks is still ahead of us," he said, adding, "July is a long month."
The United States wants to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar facility in the neighbouring Czech Republic by 2011-13 to ward off potential attacks by so-called "rogue" states, notably Iran.
A deal under which the Czech Republic would house the radar base was concluded in April.
Russia is opposed to having the US missile shield on its doorstep, and public opinion in Poland and the Czech Republic is broadly opposed to the defensive system.
NATO endorsed the US plan at its April summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
