The foreign ministers of the U.S. and Poland signed a memorandum for cooperation in science and innovation on Tuesday (June 3), at the start of a four-day European trip by U.S. President
Barack Obama.
Speaking alongside his Polish counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the agreement a positive mutual vision for the future.
"This is the future of Poland, it's the future for all of us. What we sign today will bring U.S. and Polish researchers, entrepreneurs, innovators, financiers, educators, together in an effort for us to be able to encourage the discoveries that will make life better and create jobs for our people," Kerry said.
U.S. President Barack Obama was also in Poland on a trip to assure Poland and its eastern European neighbours of America's commitment to their security and show U.S. resolve after the Russian intervention in
Ukraine.
Kerry said how to respond to the crisis in Ukraine would be a focus of Obama's meetings in Poland.
Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski appealed for more international backing of Ukraine.
"The international community needs to support Ukraine, and the intervention in eastern Ukraine in the form of sending arms and terrorists to destabilize the country must end," he said.
Obama is under pressure from critics at home, who say he is not showing enough firm leadership on the world stage, and from some NATO allies in eastern Europe who fear they may be the next targets for Russian expansion and want more U.S. protection.
But Western powers must also strike a delicate balance, because a big increase in NATO forces on Russia's borders could prompt reciprocal steps from the Kremlin and spiral into an arms race.
The White House unveiled plans for a $1 billion initiative to send more of its military to Europe on a temporary basis but stopped short of promising to beef up its permanent presence as some of Washington's allies are seeking.
The military assistance, called the European Reassurance Initiative, is to include greater U.S. participation in training and exercises, deploying U.S. military planners, and more persistent naval deployments in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea, on Russia's doorstep.
The White House said in a statement it would build the capacity of Ukraine and two other Western-leaning countries on Russia's borders, Georgia and Moldova. Obama would be seeking the support of the U.S. Congress for the plan, it said.
REUTERS