IGALIKU, Greenland, Aug. 6 - The United States, Denmark and Greenland signed agreements on Friday to upgrade the early warning radar system at Thule, an important American air base during the cold war and now a crucial part of the Bush administration`s plans for an antimissile defense system.

"Together we will meet the security challenges of the 21st century, from missile defense to international terrorism," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said at a ceremony in this village.

Greenland`s deputy prime minister, Josef Motzfeldt, said Greenland, a Danish protectorate, had had no say when the United States and Denmark signed an initial defense agreement in 1951 under NATO`s auspices. He said that accord did not take into consideration the environment or animal life and exposed Greenland to cold war risks that "we were not allowed to know about."

Now that Greenland has home rule, Motzfeldt said, historians will see Friday as "the day when Greenland took a decisive step toward equality and co-responsibility."

Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller signed for Denmark.

Three documents were signed. One updates the 1951 pact, the second provides for economic and technical cooperation and the third is aimed at protecting the environment. Powell told Greenland television that the agreement "allows us to make sure that we are providing for the kind of threats that the civilized world might see in the future. Moeller signaled that Denmark still had misgivings about the missile-defense plan. He said his government was not fundamentally opposed to them but that it had said yes to the agreements "and nothing else."

"Right now we are some distance from determining where we might need interceptors," Powell said, "but there is no plan right now for anything other than what we have already made known to the home-rule government and Kingdom of Denmark." The Thule base is just south of the North Pole. It housed more than 10,000 people, mostly Americans, at the height of the cold war and was a base for warplanes capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Now, there are about 550 people, including 125 Americans, at Thule.

The Greenland ceremony was the second in two days in which a NATO ally signed documents that dealt with the missile defense plans of the United States. Canada and the United States agreed Thursday in Toronto to amend the treaty that established the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, to reflect the United States system. As amended, Norad will share its missile warning function with United States commands that run its projected missile defense system.

Defense Minister Bill Graham and Foreign Minister Pierre S. Pettigrew of Canada said the agreement did not commit Canada to join the missile program. That decision "remains with the government and will only be made after extensive consultations," Graham said.

Source: The New York Times