NATO has convened an emergency meeting of allied ambassadors on Wednesday to discuss the incident in Poland where two people were killed in the border town of Przewodow in an explosion attributed by the media to missile strikes.
«The secretary general will chair an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors on Wednesday morning to discuss this tragic accident,» NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told Europa Press.
It remains to be seen whether Poland will finally invoke Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty to trigger consultations within NATO following the explosion, although de facto Stoltenberg’s call will involve close contacts between allies and consideration of a joint response to the incident.
On Tuesday, Polish President Andzrej Duda has been in contact with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the case. Warsaw has said it will study the current conditions and whether the premises for initiating the procedures for triggering Article 4 consultations are in place.
For the time being the Pentagon has indicated that it does not have sufficient information to corroborate that two Russian missiles have hit Polish territory, while Stoltenberg has referred to the episode as «an explosion» and asked to clarify the incident.
ARTICLE 4 OF THE TREATY Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that NATO allies will hold consultations when one of the parties considers that its territorial integrity, political independence or security of the allies is threatened.
The forum for consultations is the North Atlantic Council (NAC), which is itself the main decision-making body within NATO. Any member of the organization can formally invoke Article 4, which would be the prelude to any joint decision or action on behalf of NATO.
The last time it was applied was after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, when Estonia, in coordination with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, asked to open this process to respond to the situation in the neighboring country.
