PRAGUE, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Czech Republic wants to wait for Poland's position on the U.S. anti-missile base before deciding on the issue, a Czech official said Tuesday.

    "If we hypothetically progressed markedly far ahead of the Poles, there would be a certain time space around the project's ratification procedure," Veronika Kuchynova-Smigolova, head of the Czech Foreign Ministry's security policy department, was quoted by the daily Hospodarske Noviny (HN)as saying.

    The planned U.S. missile shield system would feature a radar base in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland. The facilities are expected to be built more or less simultaneously under the existing agreement, HN said.

    "We intensively communicate with the Polish government. They do not want to resume the talks unprepared. A certain delay is therefore logical," said Kuchynova-Smigolova.

    Another round of talks on the bilateral treaty to specify the legal framework for the U.S. soldiers' stay at the planned U.S. radar base was to start in Prague Tuesday.

    Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk agreed that the two governments should coordinate their steps in this field when meeting at the Visegrad Four (V4) group summit Monday, which will also involve Hungary and Slovakia.

    Topolanek and Tusk have also agreed to hold another "radar" meeting in January.

    The Poles should resume the talks in January, after the newly-installed Polish government decides on what it will demand from the Americans in exchange for the U.S. missile base in Poland, HN said.