Poles, Czechs see Obama standing by missile shield

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland and the Czech Republic expect the incoming Obama administration to go ahead with the European missile defense shield which will be located on their soils, the countries' prime ministers said on Wednesday.

Some Democrats in the U.S. Congress have questioned the planned missile shield and pushed to cut its funding, raising fears that President-elect Barack Obama could walk away from the project after taking office in January.

The shield, with 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the neighboring Czech Republic, would help detect and shoot down any ballistic missiles fired at Europe and the United States by countries such as Iran.

President Dimitry Medvedev warned on Wednesday that, as a response, Russia would deploy missiles in its western outpost of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland, and would seek to electronically jam elements of the U.S. system.

Under President George W. Bush, the White House had pushed to complete negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic ahead of Tuesday's presidential election.

"I doubt if we and the Czechs could anyhow influence the decision of the new U.S. President," Polish Prime Donald Tusk said during a joint news conference with regional leaders.

"I also don't think we have so far received any signals that the project may be changing in a negative way for us," he said.

His comments were echoed by the Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolanek.

"Already during the election campaign, Barack Obama said his attitude toward the missile shield did not differ from that of Bush administration," Topolanek said.

In an earlier radio interview, Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said Obama had told him two months ahead of his election victory that he had concerns over the system's effectiveness and whether it was not directed against Russia, which condemns it as a threat to its security.

"If he is assured that it is not directed against Russia then he would lean toward doing the usual thing, which is to honor the agreements of his predecessors," Sikorski said in a radio interview.

The Czech upper house of parliament delayed a vote on hosting the shield until December when a newly composed assembly takes office after recent election.

Polish officials have said they do not expect its legislature to vote on the agreement until next year.

But Tusk warned that if the Obama administration were to make any significant changes to the agreement, his cabinet would reconsider whether to submit the deal to ratification.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Chris Borowski; Editing by Giles Elgood)