US PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s four-nation European tour ends today in Poland where Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement, cancelled as “inconvenient” a planned meeting with the US leader.
Mr Obama was due in Warsaw yesterday evening for a visit that, unlike his trip to Ireland, includes no public address. Instead the US president will visit the remains of the Nazi-era Jewish Ghetto in the Polish capital and attend a dinner with some 20 central European heads of state.
Mr Walesa, a former president still sought out by international visitors, said he had turned down the Obama invitation because it amounted to little more than a photo opportunity. “A meeting does not suit me at this time,” said Mr Walesa to TVN24 television, saying he intended to attend a biblical festival in Italy instead.
Mr Obama’s talks with the Polish government are expected to focus on defence issues, in particular the future of the Bush-era missile defence programme to be co-hosted by Poland until it was cancelled by Mr Obama.
Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said yesterday that other military announcements could be expected during the trip, including a plan to deploy a unit of the US airforce on Polish soil.
Topping the agenda, too, is a long-running Warsaw wish for US immigration authorities to lift the visa regime for Poles. The issue has long rankled in Poland and with the 10-million strong Polish-American community, particularly since neighbouring countries have been granted visa waivers.
Successive Polish administrations have raised the issue, suggesting a visa waiver would be an appropriate gesture given Poland’s military contribution of 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan.
With no indication of a change likely during Mr Obama’s trip, US officials instead stressed yesterday the significance of the president’s overnight stay “not being part of a swing through central Europe”. Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski urged central European leaders yesterday to assist the Arab Spring reformers by drawing on their own experiences overthrowing communism two decades earlier.
“We should aim to share our experiences with those who are on their way towards democracy today, to show support for the democratic transition in the wider neighbourhood of the European Union, both to the east and to the south,” said Mr Komorowski to an audience that included heads of state from Germany, Austria and Italy as well as former Soviet republics Ukraine and Moldova.