Head of BBN: NATO summit should strengthen alliance's presence on eastern flank - News - National Security Bureau

15.12.2015

Head of BBN: NATO summit should strengthen alliance's presence on eastern flank

Next year's NATO summit in Warsaw should strengthen the alliance's presence on its eastern flank, head of Poland's National Security Bureau (BBN) Pawel Soloch has said.

Asked about the Warsaw NATO summit's significance for President Andrzej Duda, Soloch said that "the main goal was to strengthen the alliance's presence on its eastern flank. But the point is not only to implement Newport's decisions but also to create a new perspective," Soloch added.

According to Soloch, in this context the NATO summit in Warsaw should be something more than a "Newport plus" project.

"I think that the president wants us not to speak about 'Newport plus' in the future but about 'Warsaw plus'. This is the president's goal. Only time will tell whether this is possible and in what scope as recently the situation regarding especially Europe's security has been very dynamic," Soloch added.

Soloch stressed that the main goal was to strengthen the alliance's presence on its eastern flank. "And the second goal is to maintain cohesion and unity of all allies, so we in Poland - and also on a broader scale - have to see security in all its dimensions, namely the eastern flank which interests us most but also threats coming from the south," Soloch explained.

Soloch said that the developments on NATO's southern outskirts were "a new challenge for relations in the alliance as well as between NATO and the EU".

Head of BBN stressed that we had to take into account the position of South European countries. "And we expect the same from these states regarding security in Europe's east," Soloch concluded.

Source: PAP