Polish defence minister says US open to increasing military presence
• Tomasz Siemoniak: 'We expect a larger military presence'
• Russia-Ukraine crisis makes talks over US base 'natural'
Vice-president Joe Biden shakes hands with Polish prime minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw. Photograph: Imago/Barcroft Media
The US should increase its military presence in Poland and in other Nato members in central and eastern Europe in light of
the Ukraine crisis, the Polish defence minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, said on Saturday.
Siemoniak said Washington was open to the idea but detailed talks were yet to begin. US vice-president Joe Biden
visited Poland last Tuesday and confirmed plans to deploy elements of a US missile shield in Poland by 2018 and met Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Bronislaw Komorowski.
The Obama administration has been under pressure from its domestic Republican Congressional opponents to deploy more US forces in countries bordering Russia.
“
The US must increase its presence in [central and eastern] Europe, also in Poland,” Siemoniak said, on RMF FM radio. “We will be talking about the details and I am happy that representatives of the US, the US vice-president are open towards these talks.”
During Biden's visit, Siemoniak said,
“there was a clear expectation from our side, and also from all Nato allies [in] eastern Europe, that we expect a larger military presence of the US and that this eastern flank of Nato must be strengthened.”
Given the crisis in Ukraine, he said, it was “natural” to conclude further talks with the US would also involve the possibility of locating a US base in the region.
Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula has made some Nato members in former communist central and eastern Europe anxious about their own security, prompting Washington to reassure them that it will protect them if needed, in line with Nato security guarantees. Responding to a request from Warsaw, the US decided to increase the scale of its military exercises in Poland, sending to the country 12 F16 fighter jets and 300 personnel earlier this month.
Before that decision, there was just a small detachment of US military personnel on the ground in Poland, assisting in the training of pilots.
Poland, which shares borders with Ukraine and Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, has been a member of Nato since 1999.