Polish Foreign Minister Quits After Power Struggle : Europe: The Walesa ally was an outcast among the Cabinet’s former Communists. He calls their ideas ‘dangerous.’

Polish Foreign Minister Andrzej Olechowski stepped down Friday, saying the country’s leftist government had “dangerous” ideas about foreign policy and was not committed to speedy integration into Western military and economic institutions.

His resignation culminated an unusually public feud between the respected, popular foreign minister, an ally of President Lech Walesa, and the 14-month-old government, a coalition of parties with Communist-era roots.

The government, which has been embroiled in a bitter power struggle with Walesa, “does not want to do and will not actively and convincingly do what I consider as being in the national interest, which means Poland joining NATO and the European Union as quickly as possible,” Olechowski said.

An outcast in a Cabinet dominated by former Communists and their allies, Olechowski said he had lost influence over Polish foreign policy and had been unable to reconcile “fundamental differences” with the coalition on security matters.

There was little government reaction, aside from official assurances that Poland remains firm in its goal to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the EU. But it has been clear for some time that Olechowski’s exit would be welcomed.

In a recent television interview, Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak issued a harsh assessment of the foreign minister’s performance, blaming him for everything from strained ties with Russia to poor contacts with the resurgent Republican Party in the U.S. Congress.

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During a parliamentary debate last week, Pawlak also attacked Olechowski for taking a leave of absence while a court reviewed corruption charges against him and other government officials who received pay for their work as board members at state-controlled companies.

“I deplore that in the current difficult situation the foreign minister is in a vacation mood,” he said.

Olechowski had pledged to resign if the court ruled against him. But he was effectively cleared of wrongdoing Thursday when the court decided the Communist-era restriction on outside pay was vague, and he did not intentionally violate it.

Olechowski said Friday that he felt vindicated but noted that Pawlak’s recent statements persuaded him to resign anyway. The coalition favored a foreign policy “going against Polish interests, going against public expectations--dangerous,” he said.

Two letters Olechowski wrote to Pawlak detailed some of their differences. The letters, published this week by the Warsaw daily Gazeta Wyborcza, implied that Pawlak was soft on the Russians, who oppose Polish membership in NATO.

They also criticized Pawlak for nixing Polish participation in a proposed multinational peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed region in Azerbaijan.

The Russians have opposed the effort, insisting that they should have a free hand in running peacekeeping operations in the former Soviet Union.

Olechowski’s departure was regarded as inevitable because of the increasingly hostile feud between the Pawlak government and Walesa, who regards himself Poland’s protector against a resurgent pack of former Communists.

Under an informal arrangement, Walesa has control over the Foreign, Defense and Interior ministries, which has allowed him to place allies in key posts in a coalition government he openly despises.

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With the presidential election due this fall, the ministries have become increasingly politicized, and the lines of authority blurred. Walesa fired the defense minister two months ago, but he and Pawlak have still not agreed on a successor. It is likely they will run into even greater problems in finding a replacement for Olechowski.

Adam Bromke, a political scientist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, said the dispute over the Defense and Foreign ministries is probably only a prelude to more dramatic showdowns leading up to the presidential election. “If Walesa judges his chances for reelection are poor, he may do whatever possible to block his defeat, including disbanding Parliament,” he said. “That is when the real crisis will come.”