POZNAN : East Meets West
More than 900 soldiers from countries on both sides of the former Iron Curtain are in Poland this week, taking part in the first military exercises between NATO troops and soldiers of the now-defunct Warsaw Pact.
The five-day training program is getting under way today at Biedrusko, a village north of Poznan in western Poland. It is the initial field operation of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, which was created last year to provide military training and planning among North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries and non-NATO members in Eastern Europe.
The soldiers come from 13 countries, including the United States, but there are no participants from Russia, which reluctantly joined the partnership program this summer but remains wary of NATO’s intentions toward the former Soviet Bloc countries.
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