26 January 2004	Monday	03 Zilhaj 1424

WARSAW: Ex-communist Poland, a close ally of the United States in Iraq and due to become the European Union's biggest new member in four months' time, is asserting itself as a key player on the world stage.

"New opportunities are opening before our foreign policy. They are connected, on the one hand, with our accession to the European Union, and on the other, with our close relations with the United States," Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said on Wednesday in Poland's annual foreign policy speech.

"The active transcending of our political activity beyond Europe, as reflected by our involvement in Iraq, lends a new dimension to our policy and forces us to adopt a new perspective when looking at the issues of global security," he said.

Bigger in population and economic terms than the other nine countries set to join the EU on May 1 put together, Poland says that it has met all the foreign policy objectives it set itself after leaving the communist bloc 14 years ago.

"Fifteen years after the start of the transformations, we have security because we are a member of NATO. We (will be) part of the EU. We count in the world and we have nothing to fear from our neighbours," President Aleksander Kwasniewski said, days before leaving for Washington for talks with US President George W. Bush.

Poland became one of the first ex-communist bloc countries to join NATO in 1999 and joins the EU with the other nine new members in May. It also fought side by side with Washington in the war which toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and now has 2,400 soldiers heading a 9,000-strong multinational force in one of the Gulf country's four post-war zones.

While Cimoszewicz recognises that Iraq caused "serious divergences" between Washington and key EU countries - notably France and Germany - he insists that Poland should not face the dilemma of choosing between the two sides.

Adam Krzeminski, a political commentator, said Poland "was allowing itself to be a bit manipulated by both sides. But we will see with time, when transatlantic relations have recovered their harmony, Poland will emerge more the winner." However, over the coming weeks and months Poland has set itself the task of mending fences with France and Germany - with which it has been at odds over Iraq policy and the planned EU constitution.

Poland has dug in its heels in resisting the draft constitution, insisting on hanging on to disproportionate voting rights gained under the 2000 Nice Treaty. And in a sign that not all is sweet with the United States, President Kwasniewski intends to raise a number of bones of contention with Bush in Washington on Monday.

They range from unpopular US visa requirements for Polish citizens, to Iraqi reconstruction and sluggish US investment despite promises of billions of dollars when Poland chose US F-16 fighter jets over European rivals.

"We want to talk with the Americans about Iraq, visas and investment. But there are even more important things from the point of view of our security," Cimoszewicz told Polish public radio on Thursday.

"It is the future of NATO, the future of transatlantic relations, relations between the United States and Europe. We want to take place actively in the debate on these themes," he added.-AFP