“I can hardly imagine a situation that Lithuania, in case of an attack, would not be aided by NATO or Poland. I am speaking about military aid. The Polish army would come to defend Lithuania,” Duda said in an interview to public television LRT on Thursday.
President Duda stated that both Lithuania and Poland are NATO members and have clear Article 5 commitments on collective defence, whereas if these commitments were to be broken it would mean a catastrophe resulting in NATO collapsing.
According to the head of state, what would raise questions are security threats that would not invoke NATO’s Article 5 and this issue would have to be addressed bilaterally between the Governments, which could agree on mutual assistance.
As reported earlier, when US General (Retired) Ben Hodges, former commander of the United States Army Europe, visited Lithuania in February, he said that in case of an attack Polish Armed Forces might not come to help Lithuania. Lithuania’s Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė remarked that Polish laws indeed do not oblige the neighbour to send its forces to Lithuania.
The statements fuelled discussions in the public sphere, with some criticising the Government for not having resolved legal formalities and others noting that the claims were baseless as there are NATO collective defence principles and regional defence plans.
Later Šimonytė said that she was misunderstood and never claimed that in case of an attack Poland would not come to help.
President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda too stated that there are no restrictions for Poland to send troops to Lithuania in case of war.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who visited Vilnius in March, reaffirmed that military solidarity between the two countries is unquestionable.