Word: poland
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...statement, timing his announcement for the day after the U.S. presidential elections, should make it clear enough that he is not one to concede much through back-room dealing. His argument justifying the move, moreover, has no rational grounds in a post-Cold War Europe. A missile shield in Poland would not endanger Russia in any way. To believe it could, one would have to assume that Russia’s safety presently depends on its capacity for nuclear deterrence against a possible strike from a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member or another European state...
...That presented the Obama team with a second dilemma. Poland is an important ally, with more than 1,000 troops in Afghanistan. On the other hand, Kaczynski broke protocol by releasing details of the private call. What's more, aides say, he mischaracterized what Obama had said...
...question has been put to an early test: The day after Obama's election, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev publicly threatened to deploy missiles near the borders of two NATO allies to counter the Bush Administration's plans to install antimissile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Russian announcement, rolled out during an elaborate ceremony, was timed to put one of the most contentious issues between Moscow and Washington on Obama's table right away. Obama and his advisers took it as an intentional provocation aimed at testing the President-elect...
...statement saying that during the call the President-elect had not endorsed the antimissile deployment but had simply repeated his strategically ambiguous position from the campaign. "[Obama] supports deploying a missile-defense system when the technology is proved to be workable," McDonough said. In an apparent attempt to soften Poland's embarrassment at being publicly contradicted, Obama had Vice President-elect Joe Biden quietly follow up with a call to Kaczynski on Monday, aides...
...Russians, however, now think they may be able to back Obama away from the Bush Administration's commitment to deploy the missile-defense systems to Poland and the Czech Republic. On Wednesday, the three main Russian news agencies quoted an unnamed Kremlin source as rejecting the latest efforts by the Bush Administration to assuage Moscow's fears and suspending talks with Washington on the issue. "We will not give our agreement to these proposals," the source is quoted as saying, "and we will speak to the new Administration...