Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said that Poles “have the right to feel threatened” by Russian rhetoric over plans to install a US missile defense base in Warsaw.
Sikorski also believes NATO should take a stand on the matter, he said in an interview in the Dziennik daily published on Monday.
Meanwhile, a new poll said Polish support for the missile defense pact with the US had soared following Russia’s military campaign in Georgia and its threats against Poland.
Negotiations between Washington and Warsaw on placing 10 missile interceptors in Poland began early last year. Both sides struck a deal last week during the Russia-Georgia conflict.
A day after the deal, a leading Russian general warned that Poland was exposing itself to attack — even a nuclear one — by accepting the missile base.
‘EMPTY RHETORIC’
On Sunday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Russian comments were “probably fairly empty rhetoric.”
Sikorski, asked during the interview whether he considered the threats to be empty, replied: “To the contrary.”
“If Russia threatens Poland, then we Poles have the right to feel threatened,” he was quoted as saying.
“But this type of statement from Russian generals is a problem for all of NATO and I expect the alliance to take a stand on this,” he said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to sign the deal today in Poland, Sikorski said. Rice was to fly to Warsaw after an emergency NATO meeting yesterday in Brussels, Belgium, which Sikorski was expected to attend.
Moscow fiercely opposes the missile defense deal, claiming that the planned US system will target Russia. The US strongly denies it, saying the system is designed to protect against threats from countries like Iran and would in any case be powerless against Russia’s arsenal of missiles.
In return for the deal, Poland won a US promise to set up an additional garrison with a battery of Patriot missiles. Poland sought that system in hopes of protecting itself from a possible Russian threat.
The US also plans to set up a linked radar installation in the Czech Republic.
The new poll showed that 58 percent of those surveyed support the missile defense plan — compared with 30 percent in March last year, early on in the negotiations. The poll was published in the Rzeczpospolita daily.
FIRST TIME
It was the first time a majority of Poles surveyed have backed the US missile defense plan, lead researcher Maciej Siejewicz from the Gfk Polonia polling agency said.
The poll said 37 percent believed the deal was bad for Poland.
Gfk Polonia questioned 500 people on Saturday, two days after the missile deal was struck and a day after the Russian general made his threat.
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