WARSAW — Poland's air force will continue policing the airspace of three Baltic countries as part of its role in a NATO mission, despite one of them — Lithuania — refusing to attend joint talks, the president said on April 17.
Bronislaw Komorowski spoke at a news conference following two days of talks with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Latvian President Andris Berzins ahead of a NATO summit in Chicago in May.
He said he had signed the declaration extending Poland’s rotating participation in NATO’s Air Policing mission over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, none of which has an air force.
"Polish troops will continue to protect the skies over the Baltic states. This is our contribution to the region’s security," he said. Four Polish Air Force MiG-29 fighters continue policing the airspace from April 27 through August.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite had declined Komorowski’s invitation to the talks amid a souring of bilateral ties and Warsaw’s pressure for more rights for some 200,000 Poles who live in Lithuania.
Singling out Lithuania, Komorowski said that participation in air policing was Poland’s contribution to the security of all of Lithuania’s citizens, and "also the Poles who live there".
Komorowski added, however, that he still hopes to meet Grybauskaite to discuss joint security.
The two nations once existed as a single kingdom. After World War II they fell under Moscow’s control, but emerged 20 years ago as friendly neighbors.
Warsaw, however, has since demanded that Polish names and some historically-significant sites in Lithuania be officially spelled in the Polish language, not in Lithuanian. The two alphabets are slightly different, and both languages have a different pronunciation and spelling of names.
Other issues concern the position of Polish businesses, most notably an oil refinery, in Lithuania.
The presidents of Estonia, Latvia, and Poland also stressed at the news conference on April 17 that there was a need for NATO to reaffirm its policy of all 28 member states reacting as one to any threats to their security.
They also agreed that some form of foreign presence may be needed in Afghanistan after the NATO pullout planned for 2014.
