MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A new political party in Poland is urging the country to exit the NATO military bloc and pursue stronger ties with Russia ahead of the 2015 parliamentary election, the party's chairman told Sputnik Poland on Wednesday.
Mateusz Piskorski, who cofounded Zmiana (Change), said his party was one of the first to say that Poland should "seek NATO exit." "The alliance has been a tool of confrontation exclusively in the hands of the United States," he said, adding it is now more about offense than defense.
Since last April, NATO has been pushing for more military presence in Eastern Europe, in what a Russian deputy foreign minister described as building a buffer of "frontline states" on the western border with Russia.
But Piskorski said Poland should mend its relationship with Russia instead, which deteriorated last year over the crisis in Ukraine and national security fears. He added no one in the Polish parliament can put the finger on exactly where the difference between Polish and Russian interests lies.
"Until now, it seemed like Poland and Russia could become partners again, but hysteria among Polish politicians and their recklessness ruined it all," he said, pointing to the rift that widened between the two nations after the Ukraine crisis.
The European Union and the United States have been blaming the military confrontation in eastern Ukraine on Russia's support of militias there, a claim Moscow has denied. Last year, 28 EU nations imposed sanctions on Russia, prompting it to retaliate with a year-long ban on EU food imports.
