Washington needs to provide more security for Poland if it wants Warsaw to host a U.S. missile defense base in the country, the Polish defense minister said in remarks published Saturday.
Bogdan Klich, who will go to the United States Tuesday for talks on the program, said a base would expose Poland to new threats, chiefly from terrorists.
It would be "very difficult" to persuade Poles to support the program without more security measures, Klich was quoted as saying by the Dziennik newspaper.
"We believe that the injection of Americans funds into modernization of our armed forces would balance the risk to our security linked to the construction of the base," added the minister.
Klich said Poland wants a military cooperation agreement similar to those that Washington has with some other countries. It would be justified by the support that Poland has offered to the United States. in recent years, including providing troops for the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, he said.
"The Americans must be involved in the modernization of our armed forces, if we are to be a serious ally," Klich said.
The United States wants to place 10 interceptors in Poland to protect the United States and Europe against potential attacks from what it has called "rogue" states. The system would also include a radar base in the neighboring Czech Republic.
Russia, however, is fiercely against such an installation which it says threatens its security.
Source:Xinhua
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