WARSAW: Polish and Czech leaders are insisting that ties with the United States would remain strong despite US President Barack Obama's decision to shelve a missile shield plan in their countries.

"I received President Obama's words and declarations with great satisfaction," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday after speaking with Obama by telephone.

Obama's new project still offered "a chance to improve European security taking Poland into particular consideration," he said, adding that his country stood "to gain an exclusive position."

"I wouldn't say it is a failure of Poland, I will also say that because where we are geographically, we'll always have to work on our security," Tusk added, underscoring his country's proximity to Russia.

Talks with Washington, he said, "are bringing effects, different ones than were expected but ones beneficial to Poland."

Czech President Vaclav Klaus also brushed off any concerns about the decision's impact on relations with the United States.

"This decision of the American government did not come as a surprise to those who closely followed the signals over recent months," Klaus said in Prague.

"I'm 100 percent convinced that this decision of the American government does not signal a cooling of relations between the United States and the Czech Republic."

Obama scrapped plans by his predecessor George W. Bush to install an anti-missile base in Poland and associated radar sites in the neighbouring Czech Republic to counter threats from "rogue" states, namely Iran.

The new administration decided to replace the Bush plan with a revamped project after reassessing existing intelligence and determining that Tehran was developing its short- and medium-range missiles more rapidly than its long-range missile capabilities.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Washington would deploy ground-to-air Patriot-type missiles in Poland as previously agreed despite its rethink of anti-missile shield plans.

Washington indicated that "the Patriot missiles will be armed" and have communications and command systems that "will allow the system to be integrated into the Polish anti-air and anti-missile defence system," he said.

"This is something we have wanted for a long time."

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Washington also aims to deploy a "land-based version of the SM-3 missiles" in Poland and the Czech Republic in 2015, even though Iran's long-range missile program is further off than thought.

Sikorski described Washington's new defence project as "interesting" and said the US had assured Poland it "will also be a country which will receive an offer to host elements of this system on its territory."

The site where plans had called for the previous anti-missile shield to be installed "will most likely be the same base in Redzikowo, near Slupsk," said Sikorski.

"We're not saying it too loudly, but these missiles will be capable of countering Russian Iskander missiles," Polish defence expert Krzysztof Boruc told Poland's TVN24 news channel.

The new version of the anti-missile shield "will be a tough nut to crack for Russia," Poland's former deputy defence minister Stanislaw Koziej said in Warsaw.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, speaking in Prague on CTK2 television, called for the United States to "fill the empty space" left by the scrapped missile plan "with concrete projects."

He said he proposed two projects in discussions with a visiting US delegation: a central European branch of the US Military Academy at West Point and sending a Czech scientist to the orbiting International Space Station.