Bush meets with Poland's new prime minister (Roundup)

US President George W Bush met with Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kyczynski at the White House Wednesday, but the two men did not discuss the possibility of basing a missile defence system in his country.

Bush had not been scheduled to meet with Kyczynski, but dropped in on a meeting between the prime minister and US Vice President Dick Cheney, a White House official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'The president thanked the prime minister for Poland's steadfast leadership in the struggle for peace and democracy in Iraq,' the official said.

Kaczynski, the twin brother of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, made his first visit to Washington since taking office in July. He met earlier with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before heading to the White House.

Energy and defence issues were expected to be among the topics on the agenda for Kaczynski's three-day trip in the United States. His meeting with Bush lasted five minutes.

The Pentagon has been considering the possibility of basing a US missile defence system in Poland, but Kaczynski said in a television interview after the White House meeting that the issue did not come up.

'We did not discuss the shield at all and I don't think we will discuss it at all during this visit,' he told Poland's TVN24 news channel.

Kaczynski said talks with Cheney focused on energy security, Ukraine, Iran the Middle East crisis and Israel.

Kaczynski said the Bush administration had expressed political support for Poland's plan to build an oil pipeline designed to pump Caspian crude from Azerbaijan to Poland's and at once Central Europe's largest refiner, PKN Orlen.

'This is political support, which was very clearly formulated and repeated during the talks. On the other hand there is the possibility of American firms taking part.'

Plans call for Azeri crude oil to be transported via ship to the Black Sea to the Ukrainian port of Odessa where a pipeline would pump it across Ukraine to Brody, Western Ukraine, and then along a second leg to PKN Orlen in Plock in northern Poland.

The Odessa-Brody portion across Ukraine has already been completed. Poland intends to use EU structural funding to build the Brody-Plock leg. But it has also invited US firms to take interest in the project.

'This project which has huge political significance will also have a business dimension, and to realise this American firms are needed which will be able to enter the company which will be implementing this entire matter and will create this connection,' Kaczynski told TVN24.

Work on new pipeline is a key element in Poland's drive to diversify its energy supplies and ease its heavy reliance on Russian oil and natural gas.

Kaczynski also rejected reports that Poland would withdraw its 900 soldiers stationed in Iraq.

'No such decision has ever been taken or considered,' he told the US news channel FOX.

Rice praised the strong friendship between the two countries and thanked Poland for its efforts in Iraq.

'Poland has been a fierce fighter in the defence of freedom, both in the past and now in the present, as you have made it Poland's commitment to help others who are seeking freedom and democracy,' Rice said.

Kaczynski emphasized the long historic ties between the two countries.

'Words that would best reflect our relations would be freedom, continuous fight for freedom, for the maintenance of freedom and for the progress of freedom through the global scene,' Kaczynski said through a translator at the State Department.

Former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski strongly backed the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, but how long Polish troops should remain there has been the source of a long-running debate in Poland.

Despite positive US-Polish relations, Polish officials regularly complain about US rules requiring Polish citizens to obtain a visa for travel to the United States. Citizens of Western European countries don't have to obtain the document.

Kaczynski will also travel to Chicago to meet with leaders of the midwest city's large Polish-American and Polish community before making his way to a US military base in Fort Worth, Texas.

While in Washington, the prime minister was also to meet with US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodeman and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, as well as Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and Speaker Dennis Hastert, the top Republican in the House of Representatives.

He was scheduled to address the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington on Thursday.

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