Controversial US plans to install parts of a missile shield in Poland will top the agenda when a Russian delegation visits Warsaw in mid-January, the Polish foreign ministry said Friday.
"The delegation will arrive in mid-January," Piotr Paszkowski, Poland's foreign ministry spokesman, told AFP.
A report in the Friday edition of Poland's leading Gazeta Wyborcza daily pegged January 14 as the arrival date.
Led by Russia's deputy minister of foreign affairs Sergei Kisliak, the officials are expected to discuss Russia's vehement objections to the US project, which Moscow has termed a grave threat to Russian national security.
Washington, however, has repeatedly insisted the planned system, with missile silos in Poland and radar bases in the neighbouring Czech Republic, is in no way directed against Russia.
It would be aimed exclusively at warding-off attacks by so-called rogue states such as Iran, US officials have vowed.
Poland's new liberal government wants to "better understand" Russia's arguments against the US plan, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Polish Radio Friday.
The previous conservative administration of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski refused to listen to Moscow's objections, insisting Poland — an EU and NATO member — had the sovereign right to engage in negotiations with Washington on the project.
"This is an American installation and the United States have taken upon themselves the heavy task of convincing Russia," Sikorski said Friday.
Elected in an October 21 snap parliamentary ballot, Poland's new liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk told TVN24 commercial news channel he wanted to visit Washington when negotiations on the missile defence plan reach a significant stage.
"I want to visit Washington at a moment when we will reach an (important) stage, so we can tell Poles something," Tusk said. "I don't foresee a public referendum on this issue, but I am committed to making a responsible decision, which Poles understand and accept."
Recent opinion polls show more than half of Poles oppose US plans to install missile silos on Polish soil by 2012.
