We have lots of soldiers in Poland and we will continue to do so, we will continue to work with Poland, US president Donald Trump said after meeting with President Andrzej Duda. But he also admitted that the subject of guarantees concerning the presence of American military forces in Poland was not broached during the meeting of the two presidents held on Thursday.
TVN Fakty journalist Marcin Wrona asked one of two questions taken by the presidents from Polish reporters: “President Trump and President Duda, you spoke about military cooperation and I wanted to find out from both of you whether, during your talks, any concrete guarantees were mentioned concerning the presence of American forces in Poland as long as the threat from Russia exists. How do you view the future of the presence of American forces in Poland?”
President Trump was the first to answer. "We did not discuss guarantees and were not really in that position to discuss guarantees, but certainly we have been here for a long time, we have quite a few troops here, up to 5,000, and we will continue to do that and we will continue to work with Poland. But we did not discuss guarantees, no," he said.
After President Trump, President Andrzej Duda responded to the question posed by the TVN Fakty journalist: “President Trump and I primarily discussed our security situation. We talked in the context of what is happening in our part of Europe, in the context of the Zapad-17 maneuvers, about which we had already spoken, and there were no doubt that the presence of American forces and North Atlantic Alliance forces in Poland is today, from this point of view, absolutely justified. If additionally we also add to that the present situation in Ukraine, then it is completely clear, but we will still be discussing this subject with President Trump,” the president of Poland said.
“We have initially agreed to meet next year in the White House, on my visit to the United States. The details of next year’s meeting will be ironed out, but it is also an important year for us here in Poland, as well as for Poles and the Polish-American community in the United States, because the year marks the 100th anniversary of Poland’s restoration of independence and I would like to emphasize this next year together with the president, because it is also the matter of Poles’ contribution to building the prosperity of the United States over the centuries,” he added.
Źródło: tvn24.pl/tłumaczenie Intertext.com.pl
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: US Army