Warsaw (AFP)

US President Donald Trump will mark the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War with a speech in Warsaw on Sunday, September 1, the Polish Presidency announced.

His Polish counterparts Andrzej Duda and German Frank Walter Steinmeier will also speak, Duda's chief of staff Krzysztof Szczerski told reporters on Sunday. These main ceremonies will take place at midday in the center of Warsaw.

Earlier, around 4.40 am, the time when the first German bombs fell on Poland, Presidents Duda and Steinmeier will participate in a ceremony in Wielun, a small town in the center of the country, target of the Air Force. Hitler, while Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans will be in Westerplatte, Gdansk, where a small Polish garrison has opposed a heroic resistance to the Wehrmacht.

According to Szczerski, some 40 foreign delegations are expected, half of which will be led by heads of state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been invited. Polish officials first explained the decision by annexing Ukraine's Crimea to Russia, and then by choosing Duda to invite the presidents of NATO, EU and Eastern Partnership, Russia not part of any of these organizations.

Asked about it, Szczerski said Poland hoped for a "high-level Russian delegation" on the occasion of the upcoming 75th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz on 27 January . Mr. Putin attended the 60th anniversary ceremonies in 2005, but was not invited to those of the 70th, in 2015, after the annexation of Crimea.

Mr Trump's official visit to Poland will begin on Monday, 2 September, and will last only a few hours, with Mr Duda talking face-to-face, bilateral talks and a lunch. "Some documents" on cooperation in the military and energy sectors should be signed on this occasion, Szczerski said, without further details.

Trump, who will leave Poland on Monday 2 September early in the afternoon, is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Morawiecki.

© 2019 AFP