Condoleezza Rice was on Saturday making a brief stop in Poland, a US ally in the war in Iraq, as she continued her first major trip since she took up her post as US secretary of state.
Rice went straight into talks with Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld, and was also due to meet with Prime Minister Marek Belka.
The top diplomat's tour of eight European capitals, Israel and the West Bank aims partly to lay the groundwork for US President George W. Bush's tour of Europe from February 21-25.
During her visit to Poland, the third stop on the week-long tour, Rice was also to prepare the ground for a February 9-10 visit to the United States by President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
A staunch US ally over the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Poland administers a 5,600-strong multinational force -- including 2,400 Polish troops -- in the south of the country.
Faced with strong popular opposition to the troop deployment, however, the Polish government has said it will scale back its presence in Iraq by a third this month, and is currently examining its long term presence in the war-torn country.
Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski confirmed following the Iraqi elections last weekend that Poland plans to reduce its contingent in Iraq by around 800 troops.
Later on Saturday Rice was to travel to Turkey for talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan.
While in Turkey she was also expected to hold a working dinner with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, amid growing strains and complaints by Washington over the Kremlin's pace of democratic reform.
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