Warsaw - A security clamp-down was being imposed on Poland's
Hel peninsula ahead of the arrival of US President George W Bush for
talks with Polish President Lech Kaczynski expected to focus largely
on controversial US plans to install anti-ballistic missile bases on
Polish soil.
Two thousand police officers and hundred of Polish and US special
agents are slated to secure Bush's four-hour stop-over in Poland on
Friday.
Hundreds of protesters are expected to stage a demonstration near
the Polish president's swish Baltic seaside residence in Jurata
on the Hel peninsula where Bush and Kaczynski are set to focus on the
controversial US Global Missile Defence project Friday.
But Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski - the president's
identical twin - made it clear Tuesday his country's agreement to
host the missile shield bases was not a foregone conclusion.
'Everything depends on this talk,' Kaczynski said this week.
In an interview with Polish Radio, the premier also refused to
reveal whether a concrete joint political declaration on the project
would emerge from the top-level talks.
The US is currently in talks about installing a radar tracking
station in the Czech Republic and 10 anti-ballistic missile bases in
Poland in less than a decade to meet perceived future threats from
so-called rogue states such as Iran or North Korea.
Iranian officials, however, recently denied their country has the
long-range missile capability to stage an attack on Europe, or the
US.
Although the US and its allies insist the shield would pose no
threat to Russia, Moscow perceives the plans as a major national
security hazard.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Western media earlier this
week Russia may be forced to point it own warhead at European targets
should the US push ahead with missile shield bases nearby Poland.
Putin's words have been compared to those used by Soviet leader
Nikita Chrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis - regarded as the
apex of the Cold War.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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