U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Central and Eastern Europe this week to discuss regional security issues, efforts to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the region, and energy cooperation.
The main topics of Pompeo’s talks in the Czech Republic will be defense and economic cooperation, as well as protecting human rights, according to Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
Reeker contrasted the U.S. Army’s liberation of Western Czechoslovakia from German occupation in 1945, with the Soviet Red Army, which imposed a communist dictatorship on the country and practically occupied it until the disintegration of the Eastern Communist Bloc in Europe in 1989.
On Aug. 13, Pompeo will travel to Slovenia, where he will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G Security with Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Anze Logar and meet with Slovenia’s President Borut Pahor and Prime Minister Janez Jansa to discuss cooperation between the two countries on nuclear energy as well as “Western Balkan integration,” according to the State Department.
Reeker praised Slovenia as a “capable, reliable defense partner” that has played an important role “in promoting stability and security” in the region, such as conducting together with the United States de-mining operations and training in the Western Balkans over the past two decades.
Pompeo will travel to Vienna, on Aug. 14 to meet Austria’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to discuss trade, investment, and regional security.
Austria is “an East-West hub, a venue for international dialogue and negotiations,” Reeker said, adding that the United States has a mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe headquartered there.
Austria isn’t a NATO member, but it contributes to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan as well as in the Middle East and Africa.
The last stop of Pompeo’s trip will be Poland. On Aug. 15, he will meet with Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz to discuss a wide range of topics, from defense cooperation and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic to 5G network security and the Three Seas Initiative aimed to improve the regional energy and infrastructure situation, the statement said.
Pompeo will also meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda and participate in a ceremony to commemorate “the centennial of the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, in which Polish forces defeated the Bolsheviks.”
Poland will also celebrate in August the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Solidarity—the free trade union and political social movement that started the erosion of the Eastern Communist Bloc and contributed to the collapse of communism in Europe and the fall of the Iron Curtain.
“Poland is one of our closest and strongest allies,“ Reeker said. ”We enjoy an unprecedented level of bilateral relations.”
Poland hosts “thousands of U.S. troops rotating annually as part of our joint efforts to ensure European security” and has offered to contribute resources to increase U.S. military presence, Reeker said.
Poland is one of the few NATO allies that fulfills its obligation to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense, pledged by all NATO members.
The United States is seeking cooperation with European and other countries on the security of 5G networks due to the threat of infiltration posed by the Chinese communist regime. Reeker said this issue could be a topic of talks, to some extent, with each country.
All four countries are members of the European Union, but only the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia are NATO members.
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