MINSK, May 31. /TASS/. Washington has in fact "spanked" Polish President Andrzej Duda for his provocative statements about the readiness to deploy US nuclear weapons in the country, former Polish judge Tomasz Schmidt, who left for Belarus because of disagreement with Warsaw's policies has said.
"It was a provocation. President Duda went too far. The fact is that the Americans told him outright, ‘Mr. President, we are not conducting any such negotiations.’ Figuratively speaking, they spanked him like a naughty boy," Schmidt said on Russia’s Channel One.
Duda said in late April that Poland was ready to host NATO nuclear warheads, if necessary. He explained that he had already discussed the issue with US partners on several occasions, but no decisions had yet been made by either the Polish authorities or their NATO partners. Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded to Duda's statement by noting that such issues were the prerogative of the government. The Polish Foreign Ministry said the government was not discussing the issue. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in this connection that there were no plans for changing the configuration of the alliance's nuclear forces or for their deployment in Poland. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that US nuclear weapons, if deployed in Poland, would immediately attract the attention of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff and would be taken into account in military planning.