Agence France-Presse,
Kiev: US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said Monday he hopes Poland will continue to cooperate with Washington on Iraq and a proposed missile shield despite the change of government following elections.
“We are clearly hopeful that the kind of cooperation we enjoyed recently both in Iraq and Afghanistan on the one hand and… negotiations on an agreement on missile defence will continue as before,” Gates told journalists on Monday during a visit in Kiev.
“Obviously we'll have to have discussions with the new government of Poland in terms of specific future plans” on Poland's contribution to the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
Poland's liberal opposition Civic Platform (PO) was projected to win 208 seats in parliament after Sunday's election, routing the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his identical twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, with 164 seats.
While strong military cooperation with the United States has been at the heart of the Kaczynskis' foreign policy, Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk has vowed to bring home 900 Polish troops serving in Iraq soon.
He has also voiced reservations about the size of the 1,200-strong Polish force serving in Afghanistan.
The Kaczynskis have consistently backed US plans to base part of a missile shield system in Poland, but Tusk has pledged to hold a stronger position in negotiations with the Americans.
Gates arrived in Ukraine on Sunday as part of a European tour aimed at garnering support for Washington's planned missile shield in eastern Europe.
