GDANSK, June 8 (RIA Novosti) - More than 100 people have gathered in the center of Jarata, northern Poland, in protest against a visit by the U.S. president, who is scheduled to arrive at the Baltic resort later Friday.
George Bush will meet with his close ally Lech Kaczynski, and is expected to discuss the deployment of elements of a U.S. missile shield in Poland, plans that have proved highly unpopular among the Polish population.
The demonstrators gathered outside the Jurata's central train station where they were blocked by police.
U.S. plans to deploy an interceptor missile base in northern Poland and an anti-missile radar in the Czech Republic have provoked a furious response in Russia, which has warned that the bases could become the targets of Russian pinpoint missile strikes.
Bush is traveling from the Group of Eight summit in nearby Germany, where he fell ill on the final day and had to pull out of talks with other world leaders. At the summit, he held talks with President Vladimir Putin, at which the Russian leader proposed a compromise in the missile shield dispute, offering the Pentagon joint use of the Gabala radar that Russia rents from Azerbaijan.
In an interview with the Czech newspaper Mlada fronta Dnes in late May, the right-wing Polish president described the potential deployment as "a purely defense-related issue." He said U.S. missiles would protect his country from "rogue states" such as Iran and North Korea.
Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president's twin brother, said earlier in the year that the U.S. missile shield could also give Warsaw a lever against Russia's influence.
