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Poland Still Interested in U.S. Missile Defenses
Poland remains open to hosting components of a U.S. missile defense system, despite news accounts to the contrary, but no detailed discussion have been held between the two nations, a senior Polish official said Saturday (see GSN, Aug. 11). “Explanatory talks were held between April and July,” Deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told the Polish news agency PAP (see GSN, May 23). Waszczykowski was seeking to rebut a story published earlier Saturday in the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, which reported that Polish delays were pushing the United States toward selecting the Czech Republic to serve as the site for a European missile defense base (see GSN, Aug. 8). He disagreed with the newspaper reporting that progress in U.S.-Czech talks was intended to place pressure on Polish officials to accede to U.S. demands. “There is no question of the Polish side having dragged out these talks or put them off,” Waszczykowski said (PAP, Aug. 19). Meanwhile, Czech officials said substantive progress has been made in discussions with Washington. In particular, the United States has agreed that Czech laws would apply to a U.S. base and its personnel, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. “The base locality would not be exempted from the Czech Republic’s jurisdiction and … the immunity of the personnel of the military facilities would be under the Czech Republic’s jurisdiction,” the statement says (CTK, Aug. 18).
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