Barack Obama decided to scrap the missile defence shield. Photo by White House.

US President Barack Obama has decided to scrap plans for a US missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland that had deeply angered Russia, the Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer confirmed today.

Fischer said that Obama phoned him overnight to say that “his government is pulling out of plans to build a missile defense radar on Czech territory”, AP reports. “The same happened with Poland. Poland was informed in the same way about this intention,” Fischer said.

Under the plan, which had been proposed by the George W. Bush administration to defend the United States and its European allies against a possible missile attack from Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East, 10 interceptor rockets were to have been stationed in Poland and a radar system based in the Czech Republic. But Russia was livid over the prospect of having US interceptor rockets in countries so close to its territory, and the Obama administration has sought to improve strained ties with the Kremlin.

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