By Anna Koper
WARSAW, May 20 (Reuters) – Poland’s defence minister said no decisions have been made to reduce the number of American troops in the country and recent U.S. moves may only temporarily delay their deployment, after meeting U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Christopher Mahoney.
Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Tuesday a U.S. troop deployment to Poland had been delayed, but that it was not accurate to say the troops were being withdrawn from Europe.
Poland was earlier alarmed by reports the Pentagon had canceled plans to deploy 4,000 U.S troops in the country. Officials tried to reassure Poles that this was not the case.
“Decisions that are made in the U.S. and their consequences may temporarily delay the deployment of U.S. forces to Poland, which is exactly what we said–that there was no decision to reduce them, only a temporary suspension,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters after meeting Mahoney.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon said it would withdraw 5,000 troops from NATO ally Germany, in part due to a widening rift between U.S. President Donald Trump and Europe linked to the Iran conflict.
(Reporting by Anna Koper, Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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