President Andrzej Duda met with the senior US lawmakers at Belweder Palace in Warsaw, the state PAP news agency reported.
Poland's President Andrzej Duda. Photo: PAP/Mateusz Marek
During the talks, the Polish head of state was accompanied by his national security advisor Paweł Soloch and foreign policy aide Jakub Kumoch, the president's office announced on Twitter.
Kumoch earlier told the PAP news agency that there would be no media briefing after the meeting, saying only that the discussion would focus on the situation in and around Ukraine.
Polish, US senators meet in Warsaw
Earlier on Monday, the US lawmakers met with Poland’s Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki and a group of senior senators.
The American delegation included Christopher Coons, a leading member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin; and Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the US Senate Committee on Armed Services.
Also present was the newly appointed US ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, PAP reported.
Afterwards, Grodzki told reporters that the meeting had been conducted “in a terrific spirit.”
“I would say it was excellent,” Grodzki said, adding that "Ukraine was the dominant topic.”
Polish Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Grodzki told reporters: “Polish and American senators are in complete agreement that no matter how this conflict develops, whether it assumes military form, or takes the form of economic attrition of Ukraine through a prolonged raising of tensions, Ukraine needs military, economic, social and political assistance.”
He added that the US lawmakers wanted to know if Poland was ready to admit Ukrainian refugees "if the worst came to the worst" and Russia invaded its neighbour.
“According to provincial governors, preparations have already been made to receive 150,000 people,” Grodzki said.
‘Clash of civilisations’
“It was a very good conversation, excellent even,” Grodzki also told reporters. “Both sides agreed that it’s not just a Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but a clash of civilisations that will determine where the border of the free world will be: in eastern Ukraine or at the Polish frontier.”
Meanwhile, Senator Marcin Bosacki, a former Polish ambassador to Canada, said that the Polish and US lawmakers agreed that Ukraine needed “political and military assistance.” He told reporters that such help was "already being provided.”
Bosacki added that both delegations agreed that NATO’s eastern flank needed to be strengthened, while Poland and the United States must make sure that “transatlantic and European unity is as strong as possible.”
On Tuesday, the US senators are scheduled to meet with Polish lower-house Speaker Elżbieta Witek and deputy Speaker Ryszard Terlecki.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP