Andrzej Duda made the statement in an interview with private broadcaster TVN24 on Wednesday.
Biden flew back to America on Wednesday afternoon, following a two-day visit to Poland that included bilateral talks with the Polish head of state, a major address to the Polish people outside Warsaw’s Royal Castle, and an appearance at a summit of the Bucharest Nine group of eastern-flank NATO allies.
The US president came to Poland following a surprise visit to Kyiv.
The Polish president said: “President Biden’s remark that the US needs Poland as much as Poland needs the US is not just a message regarding security, but also an important message to investors that Poland is a country in which it is safe to invest.”
‘I asked President Biden to deploy US army weapons to Poland’
Duda was asked in the interview if Biden had made any pledges regarding permanent military bases or military-hardware storage sites.
The Polish president said: “I discussed this topic with President Biden and I raised very specific issues regarding the upcoming NATO summit. However, we also have bilateral issues, Polish-American issues.”
Duda added: “In practice these are two distinct aspects. First, the American involvement in NATO, with the US being a framework country for NATO’s presence in Poland as part of the alliance’s Enhanced Forward Presence on the eastern flank. But beyond this, there is also an American presence in our country under a bilateral agreement between Poland and the US.”
He told TVN24: “On this second issue, I asked President Biden to deploy the US Army’s military equipment, its weapons, to specially designated sites in Poland, to strengthen the American presence in terms of infrastructure.”
“My proposal was received with great attention,” Duda said.
He added that "such US weaponry deployments would boost Poland’s security.”
Bigger troop presence on NATO's eastern flank
Poland’s president also said it was vital that forces tasked with responding to threats “arrive as quickly as possible.”
He added: “First, there should be designated units in the US that will come to the rescue, if necessary. And secondly, also within NATO, there should be designated units that will implement the decisions of last year’s summit in Madrid, namely that battalion groups on NATO’s eastern flank should be enhanced to brigade status. It’s about designating specific military units in various countries that will implement this enhancement if necessary.”
The deployment of US Army equipment abroad, under The Army Prepositioned Stock (APS) program, is “a cornerstone of the Army's ability to rapidly project power and send a clear signal of U.S. commitment,” according to US officials.
The US currently has five such facilities in Europe, in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, the PAP news agency reported.
Following Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2014, the United States increased the number of troops deployed to Europe for periodical exercises, as well as expanding its equipment storage facilities so that they can house the hardware of brigade-size units, according to news outlets.
A facility to store the equipment of a US armoured brigade (4,000-5,000 soldiers) is being built at the US Army base in Powidz, western Poland, and is slated for completion in the late spring or summer, the PAP news agency reported.
Wednesday is day 364 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, tvn24.pl, US Army Central