"This legally-binding agreement calls for the stationing of a US radar in the Czech Republic to track ballistic missiles," they said in a joint communique.

"The radar will be linked to other US missile defense facilities in Europe and the United States," the statement said.

The US plan calls for deploying 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a targeting radar in the Czech Republic by 2012 in response to what Washington says is a growing ballistic missile threat from Iran.

Russia has vehemently opposed deployment of the US missile defence systems in the two former Soviet bloc states.

US President George W. Bush and Russia's President Vladimir Putin were to meet over the weekend in the Black Sea port, in part to discuss US proposals aimed at assuring Moscow that the European leg of the system does not pose a threat to it.

However, Czech officials said any arrangements for inspections of the Czech site by Russian military personnel, as Washington has suggested, would have to be agreed separately between Prague and Moscow.

"That is something which we will speak to the Russians ourselves, not to be dealt by somebody else," said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Schwarzenberg concluded their negotiations on the radar on the sidelines of a NATO summit dealing with a range of issues that have aroused Moscow's ire.

"We plan to sign the agreement in the near future," the communique said.

NATO leaders put off Ukraine and Georgia's inclusion in a formal process that paves the way for membership in the alliance. Moscow heatedly opposed NATO membership for the two former Soviet Republics..

But on missile defense, NATO leaders agreed that the proliferation of ballistic missiles pose a threat "and the allies' security must be indivisible in the face of it," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

"We recognise the substantial contribution that the planned United States system will provide," he said.

The leaders tasked NATO to develop options for a comprehensive missile defence architecture that would extend coverage to all allied territory.

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States would explore ways to link the US system with current and future NATO missile defense systems.

Officials have said that will mean developing defences for short and medium range missiles to protect parts of southern Europe that would not be covered by the US system, which is designed primarily to intercept long-range missiles.

Schwarzenberg thanked his US counterparts for coming around to the Czech view that the radar had to be integrated with a NATO-wide system.

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