Polish-American Negotiations Come to a Standstill

Last night Prime Minister Donald Tusk spent forty minutes conversing with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney about the installation of ten anti-missiles in the anti-missile shield in Poland. These negotiations were to be the last chance to come to an agreement.

The information gathered from the talks and reported in our newspaper, “Gazeta,” show that the highest ranking government officials from both sides failed to reach a conclusion. Our government sees the American proposal as “unsatisfactory.” Today, Donald Tusk will surely inform the people about the details of the recent conference in the States.

In the last several hours of the missile shield negotiations, adverse information was constantly unveiled. The day before yesterday, the U.S. sent a clear signal: the negotiations are over. The proposition is final and Poland is happy with the results. That is the way the U.S. State Department displayed the negotiations between Witold Waszczykowski and John Rood.

“That was the position of the Americans, but we haven’t finished the negotiations,” said Piotr Paszkowski, a representative of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Later, the Americans also changed their standing. “We began the next step in negotiations, but they are not done yet,” said a representative of the State Department, Sean McCormack. In regards to the question of whether the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice would be visiting Warsaw on July 10th, the same representative said, “We’ll see.” This visit was to involve the signing of some sort of understanding.

Yesterday on Radio ZET, the general of the Polish Department of Homeland Security (MON), Bogdan Klich,said that Poland will not sign the agreement as long as there is not a positive balance for the Poles.

The negotiations about the status of the military base and the American military awakens further reservations. To account for these reservations, a document called the “non-paper” guaranteed military aid for Poland, but was met with disappointment from the Poles. According to our informants, the discussions concerning the modernization of our army are foggy and there hasn’t been a word about the endowment of the Patriot missiles and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system, which the Polish government was asking for. Also, the value of America’s aid is small, only $20 mil annually.

In the midst of negotiations about the shield, an altercation arose between the Polish administration and the Polish president. “The American position toughened after Anna Fotygia, the Presidential Minister, visited Washington,” says a non-official presidential source.

“That is a vile and vulgar lie,” said Presidential Minister Michal Kaminski on TVN 24. He dictated that the President just isn’t informed about the proceedings of the negotiations even though he is “always accessible,” but that the President said earlier that Fotyga was saving the negotiation. Yesterday, the president, the prime minister and the foreign minister tried to start a dialogue with the U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Victor Ashe. The dialogue was short and lukewarm. “The Ambassador and the Prime Minister had a good talk about the missile shield, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” said a representative of the U.S. Embassy, Christopher Snipes.