Region: Obama reaffirms U.S.-Poland ties

U.S. President Barack Obama's first-ever trip to Poland delivered a powerful message to Polish leaders who as of late have doubted the United States' commitment to their country and the entire Central European region.

Obama, who concluded his weeklong European tour with a two-day visit to Warsaw May 27-28, used a press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to publicly reaffirm cooperation between the two countries on a number of fronts including security, energy development and improved relations with Russia.

"What we want to do is create an environment in this region in which peace and security are a given," Obama said. "That's not just good for this region; it's good for the United States of America. And we will always be there for Poland."

Relations between the United States and Poland had chilled slightly since Obama assumed office in 2009 in the wake of a decision to scrap a missile-defense agreement that former President George W. Bush negotiated with Poland during his second term. While the Obama administration denied such claims, critics decried the reversal as a casualty of Obama's desire to "reset" relations with Russia, which adamantly opposed the missile plan. Shortly thereafter, more than 20 Central European leaders wrote an open letter to Obama accusing him of ignoring their region. Relations grew further strained after Obama canceled a trip to the funeral of former Polish President Lech Kaczyński because of poor flying conditions caused by the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull.

But all seemed forgiven after Obama's recent visit, which included meetings with Tusk, President Bronisław Komorowski, as well as a summit of Central European leaders, which Obama also attended.

"If you said a year ago or even two months ago that President Obama would have come to Poland and had such a comprehensive agenda, we would have said you were being optimistic or even unrealistic," said Jacek Kucharczyk, head of the Polish Institute for Public Affairs (ISS), a Warsaw-based think-tank. "If you compare this visit to what was happening shortly after he was elected, the difference is immense. This was very significant."

Obama and Tusk officially announced a much-anticipated deal to establish a U.S. aerial unit in Poland in 2013, intended to help train Poland's air force learning to fly F-16 fighter jets and C-130 transport planes.

"The size is not large, but it is a very meaningful gesture," Tusk said of the aerial detachment. "What I have heard today gives me the feeling that we are working together to improve Poland's security."

Obama also expressed the United States' interest in helping Poland develop its shale-gas deposits, which, at nearly 187 trillion cubic feet, is believed to be the largest in Europe. Poland has been eager to explore the development of both the shale gas deposits, as well as nuclear energy, as it tries to reduce its dependence on gas imports from Russia.

"Shale gas is an important opportunity, [but] it has to be developed in an environmentally secure and sensitive way," Obama said. "We believe that there is the capacity technologically to extract that gas in a way that is entirely safe, and what we want to do is to be able to share our expertise and technology with Poland."

Arab Spring echoes

Obama offered high praise to Poland as he suggested it and other former communist countries in Central Europe should be considered a model for the Arab Spring democratic movement in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as for its former Soviet neighbors, Belarus and Ukraine.

"Poland can play an extraordinary role, precisely because they have traveled so far so rapidly over the last 25 years," he said. "The more we have strong leaders like Poland working alongside us, the more successful we can be in dealing with North Africa and the Middle East and encouraging the best impulses in that region, and that's going to be good for all of our security."

Some leaders said Obama was wrong to compare the Arab Spring uprisings to the pro-democracy movement following the fall of communism. Czech President Václav Klaus said the situation in the Middle East and North Africa is more comparable to the Prague Spring of 1968 because the anti-democratic sentiments in the region are still strong enough to survive.

"[He] said my view is too pessimistic," Klaus told the Czech News Agency.

The ISS's Kucharczyk agreed with Obama.

"We have to give the same benefit of the doubt to the Arab revolutions that America gave to the revolutions in Eastern and Central Europe," he said. "America believed in us more than we believed in ourselves in those first years after 1989. The external support for democracy was and is very important."

Jack Buehrer can be reached at
jbuehrer@praguepost.com