WASHINGTON (AFP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Czech counterpart Friday to discuss plans to use the Czech Republic as a base for a controversial missile defense shield which Russia has denounced as a strategic threat.

Speaking alongside Rice before their meeting, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg voiced support for the U.S. plan.

"We have to confront the dangers we have today," said Schwarzenberg, whose government has been divided on the issue.

Rice said anti-missile projects were a key element of efforts to counter the modern threats of terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

The scheme would involve putting 10 unarmed missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the neighboring Czech Republic to track any attack. This would be linked to an advance warning system, probably in the Caucasus.

The project to host a foreign base in the former Soviet-dominated Czech Republic has created tension within Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's fragile center-right coalition and split public opinion.

Washington is currently negotiating details of the proposal with Warsaw and Prague, though the installations are not due to be operational until around 2013.

The U.S. plan has divided NATO members and provoked a furious reaction from Moscow, which sees the shield proposal as a threat to its national security.

"We cannot understand what Eastern Europe needs this system for," said Sergei Ivanov, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and former defense minister. Rice reaffirmed Friday that Washington remained committed to discussing the plan with the Russians, "because we all face a common threat and we need to prepare for those threats."

The United States has invited Russia to cooperate with the missile defense program as a way of easing Moscow's concerns, but to no avail.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to focus on the plan during a visit to Moscow next week, while Rice and her NATO counterparts will take it up in another NATO-Russia meeting in Oslo next Thursday.

Schwarzenberg appeared to dismiss Russian concerns over the missile defense plan as a vestige of the Cold War past.

"We should know what the world of today is, not be afraid of the dangers of yesterday but confront the dangers of tomorrow and of today, and that's one of the reasons I came here," he said.