NATO bolstered eastern flank thanks to Polish diplomacy: FM
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
15.11.2016 15:20
NATO’s decision to bolster its eastern flank was a diplomatic success for Poland, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said at a Tuesday conference summing up the Law and Justice party’s first year of government.
Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski sums up his first year in office. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka.
Waszczykowski said that when Law and Justice came to power, Poland was in a “zone of undetermined security.”
“Until recently, NATO, which we joined in 1999, had two statuses of security. A better one, of higher security, for Western Europe… and [one for] our Central-Eastern European region [...] where the alliance army presence was practically symbolic,” he said.
But he added that Poland’s diplomatic efforts made it “clear to our allies that a real guarantee of safety can only be achieved through the presence… of allied armies”.
NATO announced in July that it would deploy four multinational battalions to Poland and three Baltic countries, which fear potential Russian aggression following Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. (vb/pk)
Source: IAR