US President Obama meets with Polish president

May 28, 2011, 8:54 GMT

Warsaw - US President Barack Obama began talks Saturday with his Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski in Warsaw to discuss issues like stationing US F-16 jet fighters in Poland and supporting democratic changes in the Arab world.

The visit was seen as a bid by the US to reassure Warsaw of its position as one of Washington's top allies in the region.

Obama was expected to reiterate America's intention to move some 16 of the F-16s from a US military base in Italy to central Poland, to be stationed there from 2013 on a rotating basis.

Obama was to later meet with Prime Minister Donald Tusk on what was the final stop of the week-long European tour he began Monday in Ireland.

Before departing for home, Obama was slated to lay a wreath at a monument commemorating the victims of a plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others in Russia in April 2010.

Obama arrived in Poland late Friday afternoon to attend a meeting of some 20 central and eastern European leaders on how their experiences in toppling Communism could be used to help support the democratic changes in the Arab world and Eastern European nations like Belarus.

Before that meeting, Obama stopped to place a wreath at the monument to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where he spoke with Polish soldiers and veterans.

He also placed flowers at a monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a Jewish-led effort in 1943 against the Nazi occupation of Poland. There he spoke with representatives from the nation's Jewish community.

Read more about Poland Diplomacy US