Warming Trend Seen in U.S.-Polish Ties : Visitor From Warsaw Expects Full Diplomatic Exchanges Soon

Relations between the United States and Poland, emerging from a five-year chill, are returning to normal as both sides prepare to name ambassadors and talks get under way on trade, cultural and scientific contacts, according to a visiting senior Polish official.

An exchange of ambassadors, symbolizing a return to full diplomatic relations, should take place “fairly quickly,” now that both sides have selected candidates, the official, Roman Malinowski, said in an interview.

The White House is expected to nominate John R. Davis Jr., a career diplomat who is currently charge d’affaires in Warsaw, and sources in Poland have said that Jan Kinast, a senior Foreign Ministry official, is Warsaw’s candidate. U.S. and Polish officials declined to confirm these reports.

As president of the Sejm, the Polish Parliament, Malinowski led a six-member parliamentary delegation to the United States at the invitation of the Speaker of the House, Rep. Jim Wright (D-Tex). The six-day visit, which ends today, has included meetings with Vice President George Bush, senior State Department officials and congressional leaders, as well as side trips to Polish communities in Chicago and New York.

Gradual ‘Reengagement’

Malinowski described the visit as the first formal parliamentary exchange between the two countries since Poland was re-established as a nation in 1918. U.S. officials said it was consistent with the Reagan Administration’s policy of a step-by-step “reengagement” with Poland, the Soviet Union’s most important East European partner.

The Administration’s approach is in response to Warsaw’s amnesty for political prisoners last year and a series of steps by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski’s government to revive its stalled economic reforms and permit a measure of pluralism in domestic affairs.

In March, the Administration restored Poland’s most-favored-nation trade status, which was suspended in 1981 after Jaruzelski, acting under martial law, suppressed Solidarity, the independent trade union movement. Although still illegal, Solidarity remains a significant force in Polish society, harassed but grudgingly tolerated by the authorities.

A U.S. official, without responding directly to Malinowski’s remarks, described the Polish delegation’s visit as part of a process of “getting back together again after the long period of silence and hostility” that began with martial law. Martial law was lifted in 1983.

Last Ambassador Defected

The last U.S. ambassador left Warsaw in 1983 on a normal rotation, and the Poles refused to accept his replacement. The last Polish ambassador to Washington, Romauld Spasowski, defected to the United States when martial law was declared.

In the interview, Malinowski, who served as deputy premier from 1980 to 1985, noted that “we are in a period of time when (U.S.) restrictions have been formally lifted, and I stress formally, because it will take a lot of common effort to create the substance (of relations).”

He expressed pleasure that the United States is taking part this month--for the first time since martial law--in Poland’s most important annual trade fair at Poznan. Talks took place in Warsaw this week on renewed scientific and technical exchanges, an environmental agreement is under discussion and U.S. and Polish officials are planning discussions this fall on promoting general trade and joint ventures with American businesses.

Malinowski voiced frustration, however, at what he said was a lack of progress in coming to grips with Poland’s most urgent priority, the re-establishment of “normal” credit relations with the West--particularly the United States, which plays a decisive role in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Poland is seeking substantial new loans to stimulate exports to the West and break a worsening spiral of debt.

Interest Debt Grows

According to recent reports by the Rand Corp. and the Library of Congress research service, a modest but steady revival of the Polish economy since 1982 is threatened by interest obligations that are growing faster than the foreign exchange Poland is able to earn to pay them.

With no new loans, Poland’s Western debt has risen from $29 billion in 1981 to a projected $37 billion this year. While it expects a $1.6-billion trade surplus in 1987, Poland owes $6 billion this year in interest and principal, leaving a shortfall of $4.4 billion.

“It is important to create proper financial and credit conditions” for growth in trade, Malinowski said. Noting that Poland must now pay cash for 95% of the industrial and consumer imports it needs from the West, he said that “no other country in the world works in these conditions.”

Malinowski also objected to the American policy of linking improvements in relations to Poland’s progress in introducing liberalizing economic reforms and its treatment of opposition forces.

A ‘Sovereign Decision’

“What we do in Poland,” he said, “obviously can become compatible with American expectations, or exceed them. But this is a matter for our sovereign decision.”

Expressing a view heard from Polish officials more often in private than in public, he said that Washington’s “dual” policy of dealing officially with the government in Warsaw while offering moral and material support to the Solidarity opposition not only perpetuates divisions in Polish society but “enlivens the extreme left wing” of the Communist Party--the orthodox hard-liners--and affects relations with the Soviet Union.

“There must be an understanding,” Malinowski said. “The doors are open (to) shaping up relations with the United States in a proper way. But at the same time, this process . . . cannot be complemented by a worsening of our relations with the Soviet Union.”