BBC news with Jim Lee

American officials of the NATO summit in Romania say NATO leaders have agreed to endorse American plans tobuild a missile defence system in eastern Europe despite opposition from Russia. The offical say a final communique from the summit will back the American system saying it would help protect NATO allies from ballistic missiles. The communique will call on Russia to accept office to coperate over the system. Jonathan Marcus reports from the summit in Bucharest.

More than a year hesitation on uncertainty of missile defense will be ended in this summit when the NATO allies essentially endorse the US plan to place radar system in the Czech Republic and a small number of intercept missiles in Poland. The summit leaders will agree there was indeed a missile threat that the US system does contribute to ally security but the steps must be taken to deploy a parallel NATO system to define any countries not covered by the US scheme. NATO military planners will be ordered to study how such a system might work and report back to the next alliance summit in 2009.