Germany cautions U.S. not to split Europe with shield

[Joanne98]

By Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany sent a thinly veiled warning to the United States on Saturday not to try to split Europe into "old" and "new" with its plans to deploy parts of an anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

In some of the strongest German rhetoric to date on the issue, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said it was important not to let the U.S. project spark a new arms race in Europe nearly two decades after the end of the Cold War.

"A missile defense system should be neither a cause or pretext for a new arms race," Steinmeier wrote in a contribution to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"Our top priority remains disarmament and not an arms buildup. We don't want a new arms race in Europe," he said in remarks provided to Reuters ahead of publication on Sunday.

Steinmeier, who is due to meet U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday in Washington to discuss transatlantic ties, has been one of the strongest European critics of Washington's handling of the missile shield plan.

Last month he delivered an unusual public rebuke to Washington, faulting it for not consulting Russia on a project Moscow sees as an encroachment on its former sphere of influence and an attempt to shift the post-Cold War balance of power.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1721007220070317

[cassiepriam]

1. Bush loves to divide. When everyone else is fighting he grabs all the goodies.

[Joanne98]

2. He also running a protection rackett. The Germans don't want his

protection. I hope they make a huge stink about this.

[cassiepriam]

3. BushCo is the most successful organized crime ring I have ever seen.