WARSAW, June 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense is open to Poland’s offer to host a permanent U.S. military presence in Poland, Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Thursday after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Brussels.
Poland has been pushing for a bigger allied presence on NATO’s eastern flank after Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in 2022.
“I had the opportunity to speak today with the Secretary of War — we discussed collective defence and cooperation,” Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters in Brussels.
“The U.S. responded positively to Poland’s proposal to establish a permanent U.S. military base in Poland.”
No decision has been taken yet, he added. Poland has so far hosted U.S. troops on a rotational basis.
On Thursday, Hegseth announced a new review of America’s troop deployments in Europe and threatened to withhold some U.S. dues to NATO if “free riding” allies did not meet their defence spending commitments.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Marek Strzelecki, Editing by Alex Richardson)
