Radosław Sikorski
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| Radosław Tomasz Sikorski | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office November 16, 2007 |
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| President | Lech Kaczyński |
| Prime Minister | Donald Tusk |
| Preceded by | Anna Fotyga |
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| In office October 31, 2005 – February 7, 2007 |
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| President | Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Lech Kaczyński |
| Prime Minister | Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Jarosław Kaczyński |
| Preceded by | Jerzy Szmajdziński |
| Succeeded by | Aleksander Szczygło |
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| In office 2005 – 2007 Alongside: Kosma Złotowski |
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| Born | February 23, 1963 Bydgoszcz, Poland |
| Political party | Law and Justice Civic Platform |
| Spouse | Anne Applebaum |
| Profession | Journalist |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Radosław Tomasz "Radek"[1] Sikorski (pronounced [raˈdɔswaf ˈtɔmaʃ (ˈradɛk) ɕiˈkɔrskʲi]) (born 23 February 1963 in Bydgoszcz), is a conservative Polish politician and journalist. Currently he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.
Sikorski was much involved in the Solidarity unrest in the late 1970s, and chaired the student strike committee in Bydgoszcz in March 1981. Stranded in Britain when martial law was declared in his homeland in December 1981, he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. While at Oxford he was a member of the infamous all-male dining society The Bullingdon Club, whose members then included the current leader of the British Conservative Party David Cameron. He then worked as a freelance journalist. In 1984, he took British citizenship. In the mid-1980s, Sikorski worked as a war correspondent in Afghanistan and Angola. For a photograph taken in Afghanistan he won the World Press Photo prize in 1988. From 1990 he was an advisor to Rupert Murdoch on investments in Poland.
Returning to Poland, in 1992 he briefly became deputy defence minister in the Jan Olszewski government. From 1998 to 2001 he served as deputy minister of foreign affairs in the Jerzy Buzek government. During the latter appointment, Sikorski became notorious in the Polish expatriate community, Polonia, for designing and promoting a particularly strict policy regarding Polonia's citizenship status in Poland.[2] [3] As a result of that policy, Poland refused to recognize the acquired citizenships of Polish emigrants, including hundreds of thousands of recent refugees from Communism and their children, and insisted that they be subject to all obligations of Polish citizenship, while at the same time making it impossible to renounce such citizenship because of an extremely cumbersome administrative procedure. This policy became known as the "passport trap" because it was mainly implemented as harassment of departing travellers (primarily citizens of the United States, Canada, and Australia) who were prevented from leaving Poland until they obtain a Polish passport.[4]
From 2002 to 2005 he was a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. and executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative. He returned to government in Poland as Minister of National Defence in 2005. He resigned on February 5, 2007 allegedly due to conflicts with the Polish PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the chief of military intelligence Antoni Macierewicz.
He left the Law and Justice parliamentary club on September 12, 2007 and joined the main opposition Civic Platform party as its main candidate to the Sejm in the 2007 parliamentary election from Bydgoszcz. [5] Following the election, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
He is married to the American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum; they have two children, Aleksander and Tadeusz. He owns a manor in Chobielin.
Sikorski is a pro-American politician, believing that that cooperation between the two countries can lead to the modernization of Poland's military. However, he is a strong supporter of Poland's membership in the European Union. He is a strong supporter of a decentralized state, free market economy, and social conservatism.
In 2007, Sikorski published a book about the Soviet-Afghan War entitled Prochy swietych ("The Ashes of the Holy"). That same year, Polish journalist Lukasz Warzecha published an interview with Sikorski in book form titled Strefa zdekomunizowana ("The Decommunized zone").
[edit] References
- ^ Radek is a diminutive of Radosław.
- ^ Wirtualna Polska: Radek Sikorski, Internet Chat Transcript from April 11, 2001
- ^ Rzeczpospolita, Spór o wizy i paszporty, Nov 19, 2003
- ^ Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada: Travel Report, Poland, accessed on Feb. 5, 2007
- ^ AP: Former Polish defense minister Sikorski defects to opposition party, Sep 12, 2007
[edit] External links
- Interview with Radek Sikorski in Fletcher Forum of World Affairs
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