MINSK (Sputnik) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that if Poland goes ahead with its plans to increase US military presence on its territory, Belarus and Russia will have to respond to the buildup.

"I told the [Polish] foreign minister — he spoke here in Minsk: we are not going to fight with you. Therefore, there is no need to create unnecessary bases. Otherwise, we along with the Russians will have to respond. It means that we will have to deploy something in order to counteract you, " Lukashenko said, as quoted by the Belta news agency.

The president further underlined that Belarus did not seek any military conflicts and has an exclusively peace-loving foreign policy.

US Military Presence in Poland

That statement was made after on October 26, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told Sputnik that Poland would strengthen military cooperation with the United States, stressing that Warsaw sought the permanent presence of US servicemen in the country. Earlier in the week, Czaputowicz took part in the meeting of the Munich Security Conference in Minsk.

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Prior to that, in September, US President Donald Trump said after talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, that Washington was considering Warsaw's request to have a permanent US military presence in Poland.

Commenting on this announcement, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said that a Polish-US working group had begun studying the possibility of setting up a US military base in Poland.