PRAGUE (DPA) — US Vice President Joe Biden sought to mend US-Czech ties after the White House dropped Bush-era plans for military bases in Eastern Europe, urging Czechs Friday to take part in a new NATO-wide missile defense system. “The prime minister and I talked about NATO’s commitment to produce a new strategic concept which will adapt our alliance to the threats of the 21st century,’’ Biden said after meeting Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer.

“I urged the prime minister to make sure that the final product has a distinctly Czech accent,’’ he added.

US President Barack Obama decided to replace a planned missile shield championed by his predecessor, George W Bush, which involved building bases in the Czech Republic and Poland, with a mobile system for protecting Europe. Fischer said that the Czech Republic was ready to play a role in the new project. But the vagueness of Biden’s words also signaled that he was not in Prague to make a specific offer and was leaving the initiative up to the Czechs.

“The Czech Republic stepped up and did their part in the previous missile defense plan,’’ he said in reference to the ditched Bush-era project, which counted on a radar station in the Czech Republic and a silo with 10 interceptor missiles in Poland designed to protect Europe from potential Iranian long-range missiles.

“Today we discussed the potential the Czech Republic could play in a new architecture, a better architecture, an architecture that actually has a capacity to protect Europe,’’ he said. A high-level defense team was planned to travel for talks in Prague in early November, Biden said.

Obama’s decision to cancel the earlier plan sparked anxiety across the region and disappointed Atlanticist Czech politicians who bet their political careers on supporting the US facility. Some of them, including former Czech premier Mirek Topolanek, expressed concern that Obama was skipping the region in an effort to improve ties with an increasingly assertive Russia, which saw the missile shield project as a security threat.

After Biden’s meeting with leading Czech politicians, Topolanek gave his backing to the revamped missile defence project, which is to protect the old continent from short and medium-range missiles. But he was also unconvinced by Obama’s arguments for scrapping the Bush-era Europe shield - a reduction of the Iranian long-range missile threat. “I worry that it will be very soon clear that the system against the long-range missiles will have to be implemented too,’’ he said.