Decision a departure point, says Poland

Press, 21 February 1987, Page 11

Decision a departure point, says Poland

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw Poland welcomed the lifting of five years of United States economic sanctions and said it hoped for economic cooperation to help repair the damage it alleged the measures have caused. •

A Government spokesman, Jerzy Urban, said President Ronald Reagan’s decision to end the restrictions was a departure point for improved relations. Mr Urban, quoted by the official PAP news agency, added that Poland now wanted “the development of mutually advantageous economic co-opera-tion (which) will contribute to a gradual diminishing of the many adverse effects caused to Poles by the restrictions.”

The move is expected to have little immediate impact because the United States is not expected to grant fresh credit to Poland soon.

Foreign trade experts said Polish exporters would have to struggle to rebuild their old markets in the United States.

The Solidarity chairman, Lech Walesa, who urged Mr Reagan to lift the sanctions, described the announcement as the “expression of wise, rational and far-sighted support for the programme and ideals of Solidarity”. But he emphasised that Poland’s future depended on economic reform and the deinocratisation of public life. Poland’s official press

also said in anticipation of the announcement that a full normalisation of ties with the United States would take time to achieve in spite of the lifting of sanctions. A foreign affairs com-

mentator, Ewa Boniecka,

writing in the daily “Zycie • Warszawy” before the American decision was announced, said: “It is difficult to speak of an improvement in relations without a return to normal economic ties with full rights.” This means access to hard currency credits from the United States and other Western countries which Poland says are essential to modernise its economy, pay debts and satisfy social aspirations at home.