Poland’s centrists likely to pull Iraq troops

The election of a centrist party to power in Poland this week will lead to a pullout of troops from Iraq and halt negotiations on a U.S.-proposed missile shield in Europe, politicians and analysts predicted.

Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform (PO) party and prime minister-designate, has already signaled such moves are likely.

“This Polish government will lead Polish troops out of Iraq,” said Charles Gati, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Pawel Zalewski, a member of Poland’s former ruling Law and Justice Party agreed at a forum Wednesday.

“Poland has fulfilled all of its obligations. Poland has succeeded in Iraq, and this is the truth because Polish zones are one of the quietest, if not the quietest,” said Mr. Zalewski, who is also the deputy chairman of the foreign relations committee of the Polish parliament.

Sunday’s election ended the grip on power by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. His twin, Lech, is the president of the country and not up for re-election until 2010.

Mr. Zalewski said the new government should not ask the president to continue the mission in Iraq, where Poland has 900 troops, and instead focus on the operation in Afghanistan.

Mr. Zalewski said after the 2005 elections, the Kaczynski government wanted to improve relations with Germany and other European powers. But before that, he said, problems over the Iraq war and the missile defense plan have to be resolved. That would pose a challenge for the PO government, he said.

Officials from the PO have said the party’s foreign policy priority was to ratify a new European Union treaty, rather than negotiating the terms of the missile shield plan with Washington.

Mr. Zalewski said the missile plan is “positive for Poland.”

“We have to find the argument to convince the public opinion that this is a good project for Poland,” he said.

Looking eastward, Mr. Gati said, the new government is unlikely to vastly improve Poland’s relations with powerful neighbor Russia.

“The hostility toward Russia will probably be less emotional, fewer words will be had, and I think this government will protect Polish interests against an emerging and somewhat dangerous Russia,” he said.