Polish foreign minister urges allies to boost cooperation, cites Ankara-Warsaw ties

• Asked which new areas of cooperation should be prioritized after NATO summit, Polish foreign minister points to defense industry, emerging warfare technologies, closer military coordination

Poland’s foreign minister on Wednesday urged NATO countries to “collaborate more,” citing the defense cooperation between Ankara and Warsaw as an example.

“I hope that we will emerge from this summit convinced that we need one another’s industries to step up production,” Radaslow Sikorski told Anadolu.

Sikorski is in the Turkish capital Ankara to attend the NATO summit.

“Poland and Türkiye are already buying from each other, but we also need to collaborate among allies more,” he said.

He said the allies are doing their part to meet the defense spending commitments agreed at the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague.

At the summit, all allies, with the exception of Spain, agreed to spend 5% of GDP annually on defense and security-related areas by 2035. This includes 3.5% of GDP for core defense needs, such as troops, weapons, equipment and training, and 1.5% for broader security-related areas, including civil preparedness, infrastructure, cybersecurity and defense industry resilience.

NATO framed the decision as a response to a more dangerous security environment, particularly Russia’s war against Ukraine and wider concerns over the alliance’s deterrence capacity.

“Poland is leading by example (at) 4.8%. Türkiye also has one of the largest armies in NATO and one of the largest defense budgets,” he said.

Calling Ankara and Warsaw “strong points in the alliance,” Sikorski said: “If everybody followed us, we would be as powerful as we were during the Cold War.”

Noting the proximity of Türkiye and Poland to crisis regions, Sikorski said: “We understand each other’s pain.”

 

Closer military coordination should be priority

Asked which new areas of cooperation should be prioritized after the summit, he pointed to defense industry, emerging warfare technologies and closer military coordination.

He said Poland had been among the first buyers of the Bayraktar systems, Türkiye’s domestically produced drones.

Poland was the first NATO country to buy 24 Bayraktar drones in 2021. In 2022, the Polish military took the drones into its inventory.

He also highlighted short-range anti-aircraft missiles and radar satellite technology as areas where cooperation was already advancing.

“We have a Polish-Finnish company that is a leader in radar satellite technology for surveillance,” he said.

The minister said both Turkish and Polish militaries should integrate those lessons into their tactics, training and procurement processes.

 

E5 was ‘a very productive meeting’

He also referred to a meeting held in Ankara at the invitation of Poland and Italy, bringing together the E5 — a grouping of Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Italy, along with Türkiye and the EU.

He described the format as a valuable platform representing the major regions of Europe.

“That’s the group of larger countries that represent all the regions of Europe … We feel that’s a circle well worth maintaining, and we had a very productive meeting,” he said.