Senior Iranian and Polish diplomats on Monday discussed the upcoming conference in Warsaw, which will focus on the Middle East, particularly Iran.
Monday’s meeting between Poland’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Maciej Lang and his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araqchi, in Tehran was held to discuss “the anti-Iran summit” that the Polish plan to host jointly with the United States, ISNA reported.
It came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month that the international summit—to be held on Feb. 13 and 14—will focus on stability and security in the Middle East, including the “important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence”.
Angered by the announcement, Iranian authorities summoned Warsaw’s top diplomat in the country and called off a Polish film festival.
Media reports have said European Union countries could snub the conference over concerns it is part of a US drive to ramp up pressure on Iran.
EU diplomats have raised questions about the real agenda of the summit, saying it was organized at very short notice and noting that Iran did not appear to be invited, Aljazeera reported.
An unnamed official recently told Wall Street Journal that there was a lot of “uncertainty about the participation of many other EU member states at the ministerial level”.
EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said on Monday that she has other commitments and would not attend.
If the event only focuses on Iran, Poland would not only be unable to call it a diplomatic success but also would lose its reputation as a relatively neutral country, says an expert
“I am travelling to the African Union Summit during those days and then around the summit that is going to be held in Addis Ababa that was planned obviously long ago. I am going to have some other visits in the Horn of Africa. I am afraid I am not in Brussels, not in Europe these days,” she was quoted as saying on the website of the European Union External Action.
The EU convened the negotiations that produced the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and Mogherini chairs a joint commission overseeing its implementation. As such, the bloc is working to try to keep it alive following US President Donald Trump’s exit last May and the restoration of sanctions on Tehran.
Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said Russia has turned down the invitation to participate in the conference, IRNA reported on Monday, citing RIA Novosti.
Caught Off Guard
In Poland, some analysts said the government was largely caught off guard by the Trump administration’s plans and is unwisely being drawn into a feud with little benefit for Warsaw.
“We are in the position of being America’s foreign policy subcontractor,” said Marcin Zaborowski of the Warsaw-based Visegrad Insight foreign policy think tank, according to Politico Europe.
He said that Pompeo’s announcement, which was first made during a Fox News television interview, had prompted a scramble by Polish officials to catch up with the American initiative.
“It was done and communicated in a terrible fashion. Iran is a potential source of diversifying our energy away from Russia,” the expert said. “That’s all been damaged now.”
The Polish government has offered Trump perhaps the most support of any EU country. And Polish officials have even pitched to Trump the idea of establishing a permanent US military base in the country that they said might be named Fort Trump. Trump has said he is “strongly considering” the idea.
In a recent article published by the Atlantic Council, Robert Czulda, an assistant professor at the University of Lodz, Poland, wrote that the announcement of the event was as shocking as it was unexpected, not only for the Iranians but also for the Poles.
He says the main rationale for hosting the Warsaw summit is that Poland wants to forge closer ties with the US and is “willing to pay the price of strained relations with Iran in order to please the White House”.
“There is another ambition driving the Polish decision. Poland, similar to other medium-sized powers, wishes to enhance its international position and prestige.”
Czulda noted that if the event only focuses on Iran, Poland would not only be unable to call it a diplomatic success but also would lose its reputation as a relatively neutral country.
