Text 4996, 91 rader
Skriven 2007-07-16 23:31:18 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0707161) for Mon, 2007 Jul 16
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President Bush Meets with President Kaczynski, of the Republic of Poland
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 16, 2007

President Bush Meets with President Kaczynski, of the Republic of Poland
Oval Office

˙ /news/releases/2007/07/20070716-1.wm.v.html ˙˙Presidential Remarks
˙˙Audio ˙˙Photos

˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Global Diplomacy

11:44 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. President, welcome to the United States. Poland and the
United States have a very unique and strong relationship. And the President
and I have just had a very constructive dialogue. And, by the way, Mr.
President, a lot of my fellow citizens who trace their heritage back to
Poland who -- are delighted to welcome you to America.

And along those lines, I fully understand a lot of Polish citizens would
like to travel to the United States. And so my friend, the President, has
once again brought up to me the visa waiver issue -- which I fully
understand, Mr. President, and thank you for your candor. And I will
continue to work with Congress to change a law that needs to be changed.

Poland is a strong ally. And Poland has taken some very difficult decisions
to help a young democracy survive in the face of extremist threats. And I
want to thank you, Mr. President, and the Polish people for supporting the
people of Afghanistan and Iraq.

War is never popular. But having heard from the Iraqi leaders today, and
their expression of gratitude not only to the Polish government, but the
Polish people and the American people for supporting this democratic
experiment, Mr. President, it reminds me of how important what we're doing
is.

America is, of course, pleased that the Polish economy is strong. We want
our friends to prosper. Of course, the President, in all modesty, reminded
me that's the purview of the Prime Minister. (Laughter.) Of course, I
reminded the President he knows the Prime Minister quite well. (Laughter.)

And, finally, we talked about how we can enhance mutual security issues.
And there's no better symbol of our desire to work for peace and security
than working on a missile defense system -- a missile defense system that
would provide security for Europe from single or dual-launched regimes that
may emanate from parts of the world where leaders don't particularly care
for our way of life, and/or in the process of trying to develop serious
weapons of mass destruction.

And I thank you, Mr. President, for your vision and your understanding
about the nature of the world in which we live. And I thank you for working
on behalf of securing the security of others. And we continue to work and
consult very closely with you. And so we welcome you. Thank you for coming.

PRESIDENT KACZYNSKI: (As translated.) Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. President
has already briefed you about the issues we were talking about during our
meeting. And concerning visa waiver, we discussed the issue, however it is
in the hands of the Congress. We do understand that the legislative process
in the U.S. is very -- it is stable and it is really hard to change that
binding law, that existing law. So we are looking forward to positive
changes in this area.

Another very important issue is the issue of missile defense. And I would
like to emphasize that we discussed it in terms of defensive instruments,
because it is aimed at defense of our democracies against the countries who
might have, or already do have nuclear weapons and weapons of mass
destruction. So it is really a defense instrument, missile defense
instrument. And so I do hope that all this project, the whole project will
be completed successfully.

And we also discussed other forums which could foster and strengthen our
mutual relations and also the NATO. And this issue of strengthening our
cooperation will be discussed at the level of the Secretary of Defense of
the United States of America, and also our Defense Minister -- and on the
level of experts. And our conversation, our meeting is not over yet, and
there are some issues that we --

PRESIDENT BUSH: I've got to buy him some lunch. (Laughter.)

Thank you, sir. Thank you all.

END 11:53 A.M. EDT
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