Polish President discusses Afghanistan, energy security and missile defence at NATO

They discussed the key items on the Alliance’s agenda including NATO’s operations, particularly in Afghanistan, as well as issues related to the Alliance’s 2008 Summit, including NATO enlargement.

President Kaczynski reiterated Poland’s strong commitment to Alliance solidarity in Afghanistan, saying that the extra Polish forces deployed to support NATO’s mission in the country will be fully operational very soon.

Indivisible security

The President also informed the Secretary General about the bilateral talks between Poland and the United States on the hosting of a missile defence interceptor base in Poland.

They both agreed the importance of the indivisibility of security and of finding the right solutions to the threat of ballistic missiles.

“All NATO Allies are created equal, and in the discussion about missile defence there are no A and B NATO Allies,” stressed the Secretary General, “The end of the discussion should be, that linked to the US ‘third site’ there should be full coverage for continental Europe and all the NATO Allies, wherever they are geographically, and that is as you know linking a system on theatre missile defence to the US ‘third site’ dicussion.”

President Kaczynski and the Secretary General also discussed energy security.  The Polish President emphasized the need to implement the decisions from NATO’s November 2006 Summit.