Cooling a warm relationship
What started as a small issue seems to be gathering momentum this week in the world's press. Poland has made occasional complaints about strict U.S. visa requirements ever since the war in Iraq started, mainly as a way of suggesting that easing visa requirements for Poles visiting America would be a nice thank you to Poland for its support in the war. However, all this changed when Associated Press filed a story, carried by a number of international newspapers, reporting a speech made by President Kwasniewski on Polish radio in which he "hit out" at the visa requirements, describing them as inexplicable and frustrating.
To recap: The U.S. Congress has decided that, to protect the homeland, all foreign visitors will need to have passports containing biometric identifiers (fingerprints, retinal patterns etc) of the holder. As this will take most countries several years to implement, U.S. immigration officials will, in the meantime, fingerprint and photograph you when you arrive. On top of this, more foreigners will require visas. To avoid strangling its tourist industry altogether, Congress has introduced the "Visa Waiver Program", based on which visitors from certain countries won't need a visa. Needless to say, Poland isn't one of them.
The article cut to the quick nicely, saying that in the opinion of the U.S. Congress, Poland is not on the list (of visa-free countries) because Poles are more likely to work illegally or stay longer. It was left to the amusingly named Mr. James Bond, press attaché at the U.S. embassy in Warsaw, to defend this position by saying that there is no connection between U.S. respect for Poland as an ally and the way that the laws are applied.
On the same day, Secretary of State Colin Powell was interviewed by Polish TV station TVN24 on the same subject. In this interview, a transcript of which, rather oddly, was posted on the U.S. Embassy's website from Tokyo, Powell went further by stating that the process of fingerprinting and photographing was not there to harass or humiliate anyone. The questioner asked if it was fair to treat "great friends" such as Poland in this manner, to which Powell responded again that these were the laws passed by Congress, and that they had to be implemented. He hoped that Poles would understand these requirements because America needed to know who was coming into and leaving the country.
The interview also touched on another interesting subject: that of American military bases being relocated to Poland. However, Powell batted that one aside easily by saying that no decision had yet been taken.
On January 26, Presidents Kwasniewski and Bush will meet in Washington to discuss political issues. Doubtless the visa issue, military bases and Iraq will all be thrown into the pot. What compromise the leaders manage to come up with remains to be seen, but with this level of complaint from the Poles, can an answer be far away?
To recap: The U.S. Congress has decided that, to protect the homeland, all foreign visitors will need to have passports containing biometric identifiers (fingerprints, retinal patterns etc) of the holder. As this will take most countries several years to implement, U.S. immigration officials will, in the meantime, fingerprint and photograph you when you arrive. On top of this, more foreigners will require visas. To avoid strangling its tourist industry altogether, Congress has introduced the "Visa Waiver Program", based on which visitors from certain countries won't need a visa. Needless to say, Poland isn't one of them.
The article cut to the quick nicely, saying that in the opinion of the U.S. Congress, Poland is not on the list (of visa-free countries) because Poles are more likely to work illegally or stay longer. It was left to the amusingly named Mr. James Bond, press attaché at the U.S. embassy in Warsaw, to defend this position by saying that there is no connection between U.S. respect for Poland as an ally and the way that the laws are applied.
On the same day, Secretary of State Colin Powell was interviewed by Polish TV station TVN24 on the same subject. In this interview, a transcript of which, rather oddly, was posted on the U.S. Embassy's website from Tokyo, Powell went further by stating that the process of fingerprinting and photographing was not there to harass or humiliate anyone. The questioner asked if it was fair to treat "great friends" such as Poland in this manner, to which Powell responded again that these were the laws passed by Congress, and that they had to be implemented. He hoped that Poles would understand these requirements because America needed to know who was coming into and leaving the country.
The interview also touched on another interesting subject: that of American military bases being relocated to Poland. However, Powell batted that one aside easily by saying that no decision had yet been taken.
On January 26, Presidents Kwasniewski and Bush will meet in Washington to discuss political issues. Doubtless the visa issue, military bases and Iraq will all be thrown into the pot. What compromise the leaders manage to come up with remains to be seen, but with this level of complaint from the Poles, can an answer be far away?
