Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski says Bielan was not authorized — Interia
In Poland, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said that the ministry had not authorized Member of the European Parliament Adam Bielan to conduct negotiations abroad concerning the composition of the Polish government. His statement came amid a dispute over Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz’s brief conversation with US President Donald Trump in Washington in March, Interia reports.
Different accounts of the meeting’s organization
Bielan previously said that he was one of the organizers of the meeting and that it was meant to help unblock talks on a permanent US military base in Poland. According to his version, the negotiations had previously made almost no progress.
Kosiniak-Kamysz denied that the issue of a US base had been discussed during the March conversation. According to him, the main message to Trump was gratitude for the presence of US troops in Poland. The minister also noted that Bielan did not take part in the meeting, while, in his assessment, the Chancellery of the President of Poland played an important role in preparing it.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that Kosiniak-Kamysz informed him about the course of the conversation with Trump back in March. Tusk called it informal and said it concerned rather the internal situation in Poland. The prime minister did not disclose details.
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Foreign Ministry requests a note
Sikorski said that the organizer of such an important conversation should have prepared an official note, but the Foreign Ministry had not received one. Ministry spokesperson Maciej Wewiór said that the ministry was still awaiting documents from the meeting’s organizers. According to him, Bogdan Klich, the head of Poland’s diplomatic mission in Washington, sent the Foreign Ministry information about the part of the event in which he participated.
Kosiniak-Kamysz explained the absence of a note by the informal nature of the meeting. He said that he immediately reported it to the prime minister and considers that sufficient. At the same time, Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the Chancellery of the President, noted that a note on such a meeting should be available at least to members of the government.
At the beginning of September, Trump said there had been significant progress toward establishing a US Army base in Poland. At the beginning of October, Kosiniak-Kamysz said its potential location would likely be in the west of the country; among the possible cities, he named Poznań, Wrocław and Bydgoszcz.
