Presidents to meet amid hopes for more US troops in Poland

Details of the plan were expected to be revealed during an official visit by Polish head of state Andrzej Duda to Washington, where he was scheduled to meet US leader Donald Trump.

Krzysztof Szczerski, Duda’s chief of staff, told reporters earlier this week that the US troop presence in Poland "will be increased both in terms of quality and quantity."

Szczerski said on Monday that Warsaw and Washington had completed negotiations on a political deal, adding: “The presidents will decide during talks … whether this agreement satisfies them.”

Following Moscow's annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014, NATO decided at a Warsaw summit in July 2016 to deploy four rotating multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states.

Distrustful of Russia, its giant neighbour to the east, Poland has in recent months been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity aiming to secure more US troops, a move it sees as a further security guarantee.

Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told reporters in Washington ahead of the Duda-Trump meeting he believed that on Wednesday the two presidents "will have some good news to announce—for Poland, for the United States and for NATO."

Meanwhile, Szczerski has said that, during Duda’s trip to the United States this week, a string of bilateral agreements are expected to be signed on energy, medical technology and business team-ups.

(pk/gs)