Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that Poland’s concerns about movements that question the eastern flank of the European Union and NATO must be addressed.
Rebelo de Sousa left “a special word” for the role Poland “has played in the situation in Ukraine” after a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
“We are united, and we show solidarity without hesitation, and that’s why I took due note of Polish concerns about what could be understood as the need to be alert to movements that question the eastern borders of the European Union and NATO. We are attentive, supportive and operational,” he emphasised.
According to Rebelo de Sousa, the “challenge posed by this conflict, which is not merely a European conflict, but a global one, is a difficult but essential challenge”.
“Ignoring it or not being available to face it, to the extent of each one’s capabilities, would be a historic mistake, and neither of our two peoples, countries or states has made that mistake. This explains why in Portugal there is practically total unity around this issue,” he defended.
In the head of state’s analysis, Portugal, followed by Poland, “is where public opinion is clearest about the position to be adopted by the Portuguese state on the Ukrainian situation”, which has generated “a national convergence, sensitive to the principles at stake”.
Rebelo de Sousa pointed out that the “Polish position about the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation” was “always constant”, whether from a political, diplomatic, military, humanitarian or financial point of view.
“As Ukraine and our other allies know, the Portuguese position is exactly the same. It is and will be because we cannot accept the violation of fundamental principles of the international community, of international law, of the United Nations Charter, and that is why the Ukrainian people have the right to recover their territorial integrity, which is fundamental to the exercise of their sovereignty as an independent state,” he said.
nd to do so with the solidarity of all those who recognise these principles and do not accept the continued violation of values that should unite the international community,” he said.
According to the president, we must be aware of “the direct and indirect ways of waging war”.
“War is being waged today in many ways. We are well aware of what is happening on other continents (…) National forces are deployed on other continents, and we know how destabilising interventions there began indirectly and then became direct,” he said.
On 10 August, it was announced that Poland would increase its military force on the border with Belarus, Russia’s ally, to around 10,000 soldiers as a form of deterrence.
(Joana Felizes | Lusa.pt)
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