"From February 2007, we will have just over 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan," the country’s Defence Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Thursday he told Poland's TVN24 television from Washington.
"We are going to participate in operations in eastern Afghanistan."
It’s the first European Union country to commit more troops after NATO defence chiefs agreed that they needed to add to the existing 20,000 strong force in Afghanistan.
"We know this will be a dangerous operation. Poland understands that NATO will have to be more active in Afghanistan. We are well aware of that, and that is why we decided to increase the size of the force," Defence Ministry spokesman Leszek Laszczak said.
The country’s current contingent is based in the north-eastern town of Bagram, as will be battalion arriving in February. "The cost of the Afghanistan intervention is estimated at 300 million zlotys (A$127 million) and will be covered by Poland," the communiqué said.
Polish officers will also be integrated into the command structure of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a defence ministry communiqué said.
The defence ministry statement stressed that this new deployment of troops would not adversely affect Warsaw’s commitment in Iraq, where Poland leads a contingent of 2000 troops – including 880 of their own.