US troops currently stationed in Poland on a temporary basis will be there for “a long time,” President Joe Biden said on Wednesday. The comment was made in passing following an event at the White House, and Biden did not elaborate. Warsaw has asked Washington to permanently garrison troops in Poland, but that would technically violate a NATO treaty with Russia.
Polish Radio correspondent Marek Walkuski called out a question about US troops as Biden was leaving the East Room.
“They’ll be there for a long time,” the US president replied, walking away.
It is unknown how many US troops are currently in Poland, NATO’s main logistical hub for supporting the government in the neighboring Ukraine. In May, the US ambassador in Warsaw revealed that over 12,600 American military personnel were in the country, the largest number in history.
Warsaw called for additional NATO forces to be deployed in Poland and the Baltic States in September, as a response to the partial mobilization of reservists in Russia.
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Last month, Polish President Andrzej Duda’s foreign policy adviser Jakub Kumoch said Washington should permanently station troops and even nuclear weapons on Polish territory. Acknowledging that this would directly violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act, Kumoch called the 1997 treaty development a dead letter, saying Moscow made it void by its “invasion” of Ukraine.
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