"This centre will certainly be created. We consider it to be an important element of cooperation with our partners in the East," Bogdan Klich told a news conference late on Thursday.
A Polish defense ministry's spokesman later explained that it was a trilateral initiative from Poland, Norway and Turkey, while the U.S. military declined to comment on the issue saying the matter should be discussed with NATO officials.
According to the Polish defense minister, the future network will be headquartered in Warsaw, and will share information, gathered by radars in Norway, Poland and Turkey, with Moscow.
In return, Russia would provide NATO with its own data on similar airborne threats to the alliance.
Klich said the new project served as an example of NATO's willingness to reestablish fully-fledged ties with Russia, which were suspended by the alliance unilaterally in September 2008, after Russia's retaliation to Georgia's attack on South Ossetia in August.
In a recent move, the leaders of NATO members have agreed to resume the work of the Russia-NATO Council and scheduled a meeting in the council's framework at the level of foreign ministers on May 19 in Brussels.
Commenting on the announcement by the Polish defense minister, Russia's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin welcomed the decision as a practical contribution to the improvement of Russia-NATO relations.
"It is certainly an example of practical cooperation, which will restore elements of trust between Russia and the alliance," Rogozin told RIA Novosti on Friday.
Meanwhile, Moscow remains at loggerheads with Washington over plans to deploy a missile defense system in Central Europe. The U.S. has signed treaties with the Czech Republic on hosting a radar station and with Poland on the deployment of 10 interceptor missiles by 2013.
Russia says the missile shield would be a threat to its national security while the United States argues it is necessary to guard against the threat of missile attacks from states such as Iran.
Top Russian officials have repeatedly expressed their hope that the new U.S. administration will not follow through with the plans, and President Dmitry Medvedev said following talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in April that both countries would make every effort "to find a way out of this difficult situation."
