BRUSSELS, Belgium - NATO ministers on Thursday explored U.S. missile defence plans for Europe and considered Russia's surprise offer to include a radar base in Azerbaijan in the missile shield.
The defence ministers were also discussing how to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan, where the alliance has 36,000 troops, and examining U.S. claims that Iran is arming Taliban insurgents fighting NATO forces.
Allied diplomats said the ministers are looking at developing their own anti-missile defences. These would be "bolted on" to the U.S. shield to protect all NATO nations from short- and long-range attacks.
"We must all be interested in building up protection for the population of Europe as a whole," said German Defense minister Franz Josef Jung, as he arrived for the two-day meeting.
The U.S. proposal to install 10 anti-missile interceptors in Poland and a radar unit in the Czech Republic would protect most of Europe from the threat of long-range attack from Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East. But it would leave Turkey, Greece and parts of the Balkans exposed.
The proposed NATO short-range defences would aim to fill the gap.
Russia has reacted furiously to the U.S. plans, threatening to retaliate by pulling out of a key arms control treaty and point warheads at Europe for the first time since the Cold War. However, at the G-8 summit last week, President Vladimir Putin suggested Russia could cooperate with the West on an anti-missile radar base in Azerbaijan.
"I will certainly underscore our interest in exploring with them President Putin's proposal with respect to radar in Azerbaijan," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday on his way to the NATO meeting.
During a stop in Germany, Gates added he was "very pleased that President Putin acknowledged that there is merit to missile defence, that Iran does represent a problem that needs to be dealt with in terms of potential missile defense."
NATO ministers will seek more details of the Russian proposal from their Russian counterpart, Anatoly Serdyukov. But alliance experts, citing the complexity of missile defence, said it was too early to say if the Azerbaijani radar could effectively replace or supplement planned U.S. installations in central Europe.
"The trouble with missile defence is that it is rocket science," said John Colston, NATO's assistant secretary general for defense policy.
The NATO ministers are due to meet their Afghan counterpart on the second day of talks Friday.
Ahead of the meeting, Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak on Thursday played down U.S. claims to "irrefutable evidence" that the Iranian government was providing arms to Taliban rebels.
"There has been evidence of weapons, but it is difficult to link it to Iran. (They) might be from al Qaeda, from the drug mafia or from other sources," Wardak said.
Gates is expected to press allies to step up training efforts for Afghan security forces. The U.S. wants to double the approximately 20 teams of NATO training experts embedded with Afghan fighting units.
Allies are likely to raise concerns about the growing number of civilian casualties killed in incidents involving international troops in Afghanistan.
Worried that civilian fatalities are undermining support for the mission among Afghans and European public opinion, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer wants to improve coordination between NATO troops and local authorities, speed up investigations into fatal incidents and offer speedy compensation when civilians are caught in the fighting.
