WARSAW: A Polish magazine said on Sunday it has obtained recordings of a conversation in which Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski says the country’s strong alliance with the US “isn’t worth anything” and is “even harmful because it creates a false sense of security.”

In a short transcript of the conversation, a person identified as Sikorski by the magazine Wprost tells former finance minister, Jacek Rostowski, that Poles naively believe the US bolsters their security.

Using vulgar language, the person argues that such beliefs are nonsense, and that the Polish-US alliance alienates the Russians and Germans. There has been no official confirmation that it is Sikorski who speaks in the conversation. Wprost last week set off a political storm in Poland with the release of a recording of a conversation between central bank head Marek Belka and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz.

In the recording the two discussed how the bank could help the governing party win re-election in 2015, an apparent violation of the bank’s independence.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2014