Poland abandons plan to invoke Article 4 of NATO founding treaty

The Polish authorities decided not to invoke Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty on consultation in the event of a threat after the rocket explosion incident.

According to TASS, Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki made the statement on the air of Polish Television.

"We are essentially holding these consultations. But indeed, there is Article 4 of the defense treaty of Washington that binds the members to hold consultations in the event of a threat. The president and I, as part of the national security committee, made a decision late last night that we would be looking into reasons for invoking Article 4. And if we had them, our ambassador had the opportunity to use it," he said.

"But the course of events and the data that came in overnight have led us to believe it wasn’t a deliberate attack on Poland. According to our information as of this moment, there wasn’t a plan to attack Poland. So, we didn’t invoke Article 4, although we had it at the ready," the prime minister said.