Polish President Andrzej Duda held a press conference with Croatian President Zoran Milanovic after a meeting during which they discussed security, Ukraine, military modernization, and mutual cooperation of the arms industries, according to wPolityce.
“Above all, I thanked (Milanovic) for the participation of Croatia and Croatian soldiers in the NATO contingent in Poland,” Duda told reporters after their talk.
“With their presence, Croatia and Croatian soldiers show the unity of the alliance,” he said, adding that he also asked that Croatia perhaps increase its presence in the future.
Pointing out the continued threats Poland faces on its own border with Belarus, Duda said: “We are always in solidarity, and if Croatia needs any support in the defense of the borders and the European Union and the state in general, (they should) remember our presence and our readiness to support, because we assume that this is in a sense our allied obligation and this is within NATO.”
“Polish border guards are highly trained and well-equipped, so if help is needed, we are ready to help,” Duda said.
On Ukraine, the Polish president said, “Our positions are generally similar (…) We both want this war to end, for Russian aggression to end, but we want it to end with a just and lasting peace.”
Regarding the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague, Duda said he had sent a letter to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte asking for a joint agreement to increase the threshold of defense spending to a minimum of 3 percent of GDP.
“I believe that this is necessary due to the situation that Russia has created, posing a threat. The return of Russian imperialism is obvious and we are all facing this threat,” he said, stressing that this demands higher defense spending and rebuilding the arms industry in Europe to modernize armies across the continent.
Noting that Poland is spending 5 percent of its GDP on defense, Duda said the country is buying equipment from the U.S., including anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense systems, as well as tanks, which we are buying from both the United States and Korea.
Duda informed press he had told Milanovic that the Korean K2 tank is “a very good offer also for European countries” and that he hopes to produce them in Poland with a Korean partner.
Poland also hopes to sell its own Borsuk infantry fighting vehicle to the Croatian army.
“So, this cooperation, I hope, of the arms industries and our mutual cooperation, in terms of modernization activities, will take on a new dimension over the next few years,” President Duda said.
On a different topic, he also noted that the U.S. secretary of energy would be joining the upcoming summit of the Three Seas Initiative.
