Schwarzenberg estimates agreement on radar could be reached in first months of 2008

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg has said that he expects Prague and Washington to conclude a treaty on the construction of a US radar base in the Czech Republic in early 2008, saying in Brussels on Friday that agreement could be reached sometime between January and March. The Czech government is negotiating on the radar project with the US even though the project is opposed by a majority of Czechs as well as the opposition. Russia has also been one of the main critics of the US plan to deploy the radar base to the Czech Republic as part of its planned missile defence shield in Central Europe.