Poland denies Russian report of FM comments

It would turn out that Cold War reflexes of the worst kind are still alive in Warsaw - Nesterenko added.

Poland on Friday denied a Russian press report claiming that the Polish foreign minister recently suggested he would welcome US troops in Poland to deter a Russian tank invasion.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski as saying Wednesday at a Washington-based research centre - We want to have American troops deployed in our country as a shield against Russian agression on our country. -

The Interfax report - in a completely unjustified fashion attributed words to the minister that he never uttered - Polish foreign ministry press spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said in a statement Friday.

- It seems that in this case we are dealing with intentional manipulation - Paszkowski said.

- Because the (Interfax) report elicited, which is perhaps what was intended, numerous and wide-spread reactions, the Foreign Affairs Ministry press spokesman will ask Interfax for a speedy and unequivocal correction of the errors in the original report - he added.

The Interfax report on comments allegedly made by Sikorski during a visit to Washington this week has received extensive coverage in the Russian media.

- If it is confirmed that Mr Sikorski really said this, the only thing we can do is express our extreme bewilderment - Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters Friday.

- It would turn out that Cold War reflexes of the worst kind are still alive in Warsaw - Nesterenko added.

According to an audio recording on the website of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Sikorski noted that Russia and its ally Belarus had recently conducted a major exercise involving hundreds of military vehicles close to Poland and commented that "these tanks... were just 250 kilometres (150 miles) of flat ground from our capital city."

- What really reassured Germany, for example, during the Cold War was not Article 5... but the presence of 300,000 American troops - Sikorski said at the Washington-based centre, referring to the mutual defence clause of the NATO Charter.

- We have, at the latest count, six American troops. One, two, three, four, five, six outside the embassy - he added, apparently referring to the US embassy in Warsaw.

Russia has been highly suspicious of any US military deployments in its former Soviet-era sphere of influence, including in Poland, a member of the NATO military alliance.