Talks on more US troops in Poland 'very advanced': president

Speaking to reporters while returning from a NATO summit, President Andrzej Duda on Thursday said he had discussed the idea with US leader Donald Trump on the sidelines of the gathering in Brussels.

"I said how we view it, and what conditions we are able to offer in terms of finances,” Duda told a media briefing on board a plane bound for Warsaw.

“It is obvious to me that President [Trump] attaches a great deal of importance to this. That’s evident. So I said right away that we not only want to host American troops, but are ready to prepare the infrastructure -- and consequently finance the preparations -- for their presence," he said, as quoted by Poland's PAP news agency.

Duda added that “talks are already very advanced when it comes to having more American troops stationed in our country.”

The Polish president was earlier in the day quoted as saying that September was a possible date for him meeting Trump at the White House.

Duda discussed military cooperation during a brief meeting with Trump ahead of the NATO summit in Brussels on Wednesday, according to public broadcaster Polish Radio.

Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said this month that his country was in talks with the United States to host permanent US army bases, and that the talks were “on the right track."

Amid fears of Russian aggression following Moscow's annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014, NATO decided at a Warsaw summit in July 2016 to deploy four rotating multinational battalions to Poland and three Baltic states.

Heads of state and government from 29 NATO countries meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday approved the "Four 30s" plan to have 30 troop battalions, 30 aircraft squadrons and 30 warships ready to deploy within 30 days by 2020 to combat any threats, amid fears of an aggressive Russia, Polish Radio's IAR news agency has reported.

(gs/pk)

Source: PAP/IAR