Poland to step up military cooperation with US

PM Donald Tusk during an emergency debate in parliament on the Ukraine crisis: photo - PAP/Tomasz Gzell

"Poland and the United States have started consultations on strengthening military cooperation, including further air exercises," Donald Tusk said on Wednesday following Russian and Ukraine troops in an uneasy standoff in Crimea and President Putin ordering snap military exercises near Poland's eastern border last week.

Tusk added the military exercises with the United States could be taking place "in the nearest future".

Prime Minister Tusk also told parliament that due to the Ukraine crisis the Polish government is "changing the order of priorities" in the modernization of the armed forces.

Defence minister Tomasz Siemoniak refused to give more details, saying only that "intensive work" was underway on the change of plan.

US defence secretary Chuck Hagel said on Wednesday that the United States military is stepping up joint training through an aviation detachment based in Poland and boosting participation in a NATO air policing mission.

Tusk will be in Brussels on Thursday for a meeting of EU leaders on the crisis, where he, with the backing of other central European member states and UK, will be pushing for a statement which will include the threat of sanctions against Russia.

They will be opposed by Germany and others who are emphasizing mediation in the conflict.

Ukraine's new interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk will also be present at the summit in Brussels.

The European Union has offered Ukraine's new pro-Western government 11 billion euros in financial aid in the next couple of years provided Kiev reaches a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

The EU is also to freeze assets of ousted Ukraine president viktor Yanukovych, his son, and 16 other officials associated with the bloody crackdown agauinst protesters in Kiev which left 95 dead.

A bugged telephone call between Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Paet and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, leaked on Youtube this week, recounted a conspiracy theory that opposition provocateurs were responsible for the deaths.

The tape first appeared on the Kremlin-backed Russia Today, a television channel which saw an on-air resignation by a news reader on Wednesday due to bias coverage of the Ukraine crisis. (pg)

source: PAP/Reuters