Warsaw, Poland – President-elect Lech Kaczynski promised Monday to visit the United States soon, calling Washington an important ally but shedding no further light on whether Poland would extend its troop deployment in Iraq past the planned withdrawal next year.
Kaczynski, the socially conservative mayor of Warsaw who believes in capitalism with a safety net, won Sunday’s presidential runoff race with 54 percent of the vote, defeating lawmaker Donald Tusk of the pro-market Civic Platform party.
In a sign of the importance he places on ties with Washington, Kaczynski said he would take up President Bush’s invitation to visit soon after he takes office Dec. 23. Bush made the invitation in a congratulatory phone call Monday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Kaczynski said.
“He congratulated me, said that Poland is an important ally of the United States… ,” Kaczynski told reporters in Warsaw. “I talked about the strategic significance of the alliance to Poland.”
But it was unclear whether Kaczynski would stick with the outgoing government’s plan to pull Polish troops out of Iraq by early next year. The issue was not a focus of the elections, but Kaczynski and his party have hinted the troops could stay longer if Poland gets more incentives from the U.S., such as increased military aid.
Kaczynski, who has praised the first year of Poland’s membership in the European Union, pledged Monday that his country would hold a referendum before adopting the euro. Kaczynski also reiterated his pledge to stand up to Russia, promising not to visit Moscow until Russian President Vladimir Putin travels to Poland.
