Presence at Board of Peace's meeting not decided yet, Polish president says
Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on Sunday that no decision has been made on whether he will attend the first gathering of the US-led Board of Peace, following the Polish government's initial rejection of an invitation to join the new body.
Such a comment was delivered in the right-wing president's talk with Poland's private news channel Polsat News and came after the centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday his country will not become the Board's member "under current circumstances" and due to "certain doubts over its form."
The issue has added to the list of disputes that have put the two politicians at odds amid their differing political views. Nawrocki is a known ally of Donald Trump, the US President, the founder and chairman of the Board of Peace.
Tusk, while initially rejecting the invitation, told the cabinet meeting that Warsaw "will continue to analyse it, and we will remain very flexible and open", and in case "there is a change in circumstances that makes joining the board possible," Poland is "not ruling out any scenario."
Initially established with a task to oversee the reconstruction of the Israel-devastated Gaza Strip, the goal of the Board of Peace has since expanded its mandate to tackling global conflicts. Its first meeting is due to take place in Washington on Thursday.
Nawrocki also criticised the diplomatic feud that unfolded earlier this month between US Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose and the Speaker of Sejm, the lower house of Poland's parliament, Wlodzimierz Czarzasty. The row was triggered by Czarzasty's refusal made on Monday to back a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for US President Donald Trump, whom the speaker accused of pursuing a force-based foreign policy that devalues allies.
Following Czarzasty's statement, Rose said he would sever all ties with the Sejm speaker.
"It is not good for Poland when the ambassador of a foreign state - even a great superpower, our friend, the United States - disciplines the speaker of the Polish Sejm," the president said. "It is also not good when the speaker of the Sejm... acting in the narrow interest of his party and political circle, clearly damages Polish-American relations." (PAP)
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