Polish opposition party calls for country to host nuclear weapons

WORLD  23 April 2024 - 20:59

Poland's largest opposition party Law and Justice believes the country should participate in NATO's nuclear sharing program, said Mariusz Blaszczak, chairman of the party’s parliamentary club and former defense minister.

"Countries that are in the nuclear sharing program have the ability to transfer nuclear weapons that the United States possesses. It is high time to return to our initiative, the Law and Justice initiative, saying that Poland should be in this program," he was quoted as saying in a post on the party’s X account, according to TASS.

Blaszczak also urged Prime Minister Donald Tusk to discuss the issue with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is in Warsaw on a visit. The politician also said his party plans to discuss Poland's accession to the nuclear sharing program at the next meeting of the relevant committee of the lower house of the parliament.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Monday that his country was ready to host NATO nuclear warheads if necessary. He said he had already discussed the issue with US partners, but no decisions had yet been taken either by the Polish government or their NATO partners. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that such issues were for the cabinet to decide, while the Foreign Ministry said the issue was currently not under discussion at the cabinet.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said US nuclear weapons, if deployed in Poland, would immediately attract the attention of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff and would be taken into account in military planning.

In June 2023, Poland’s then-Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that Warsaw requested to be included in NATO’s nuclear sharing program following Russia's deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby at the time declined to say whether the US was discussing the issue with Poland. In September 2023, Duda said the country had made no progress with its aspirations to host nuclear weapons.

Caliber.Az