Walesa warns on East-West relations

The Polish President, Lech Walesa, said yesterday there was a threat of new East-West confrontation similar to the Cold War unless the European Union embraced the Eastern European countries that had been in the Soviet Bloc, Reuter reports from Rome.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Mr Walesa said that Eastern European countries must be admitted into the European Union and Nato otherwise Russia would seek to reassert its influence in the region. 'If Europe and Nato decided within a short period of time, at the most six months, to expand gradually towards the European countries that were Communist, then the field of confrontation would diminish,' Mr Walesa said.