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<TITLE>Polish Defense Minister Stanislaw Dobrzanski...Welcoming Remarks</TITLE>
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<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+4">Welcoming Remarks</FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+3">Defense Minister of Poland Stanislaw Dobrzanski</FONT></CENTER>
<P>It was a pleasure for me to act as host of the Thirteenth NATO Workshop.
It is significant that the Workshop took place in a country that is not a
member of NATO but is a candidate for membership. Both personally and on
behalf of the other representatives of Poland's Ministry of National
Defense, I would like to thank all the Workshop participants for coming to
Warsaw and for giving us an opportunity to meet such a group of eminent
leaders. </P>
<P>The NATO Workshop is an undertaking of international importance. This
year's Workshop is particularly important because it was held at a time
when NATO countries are about to make decisions concerning the admission
of new members to the Alliance. These decisions will be followed with
great interest, particularly by countries aspiring to membership. We
therefore appreciate the opportunity this Workshop has given us to discuss
various aspects of the international, economic, and technical conditions
involved in the opening up of NATO. </P>
<P>We are very honored that Poland has been entrusted with the hosting of
the NATO conference. We take this as a sign of confidence in and
appreciation of Poland's foreign policy, as a recognition of our
participation in international activities, and an acknowledgment of our
organizational abilities. Poland was among the first Partner states to
present a Partnership for Peace (PFP) Framework Document and an Individual
Partnership Program. We were also the first to organize a multinational
exercise under the PFP program, and since that time have taken part in
more than 20 such exercises. Through Partnership for Peace we have been
able to ready our armed forces for cooperation with NATO armies, and have
done so with our battalion that is part of the IFOR Nordic-Polish brigade
in Bosnia-Herzegovina. </P>
<P>The fact that the North Atlantic Alliance decided to hold the XIIIth
Workshop in a non-member country is seen by us as a recognition of the
efforts being made by all the candidate countries. The Workshop has also
given Poland the opportunity to prove that we continue to strive for our
strategic foreign policy goal--integration with European and Euro-Atlantic
security structures. It is also allowing us to show that we are capable of
fulfilling the tasks that are required of Alliance members. Let us work
toward the successful implementation of NATO's enlargement plans and
toward further stabilization and strengthening of security in Europe and
in the world. </P>
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