2024-09-03 15:06 update: 2024-09-04, 14:21
Photo PAP/Adam Kumorowicz
An increase in defence spending by NATO members will prevent a new world war, Polish President Andrzej Duda has said.
Duda was speaking at the opening of the 32nd International Defence Industry Exhibition in the southeastern city of Kielce on Tuesday.
"I have no doubt that raising the defence spending level and making NATO countries' armies really strong... will avert a big war, the next world war," Duda said.
With 4 percent of its GDP spent on defence, Poland is in the "vanguard" in NATO, Duda said.
But despite being certain of NATO support in the event of aggression, Poland "is treating the issue of its own security responsibly," Duda said, commenting on recent reports in German media claiming that Poles are behaving as if no-one was going to help them, drawing conclusions from the onset of World War II, when Poland was left alone by its allies.
"That's why we're making these expenditures so that there is no war, so that our forces are so well-armed that no-one dares to attack us," he said.
Poland stepped-up its defence spending after Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Warsaw has contracted huge amounts of weaponry from Washington and Seoul, among other suppliers. (PAP)
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