On the contrary nothing would suit Poland more than a constructive Russian contribution to European security

On the contrary, nothing would suit Poland more than a constructive Russian contribution to European security.From a Russian perspective, the picture looks different. Strategists in Moscow would regard Nato's expansion into Poland as an aggressive step, bringing the world's strongest military alliance up to the Russian border in Kaliningrad and recalling the bad old days.How might Russia respond if Poland joined Nato? The Defence Minister, Pavel Grachev, recently warned: "Faced with a new, powerful bloc, we will seek the most dependable allies from among the countries of the former Soviet Union and the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States]."This appears to be a threat to impose greater economic, political and military integration on the entire former Soviet area except the three Baltic republics. Poland makes no secret that one of its fundamental foreign policy goals is to join Nato, an ambition that all Russian politicians seek to thwart.The Poles are careful to point out that, in aspiring to join Nato, they are not plotting to "contain" or "roll back" Russia. A spokesman for the Russian agency, Vladimir Karpov, said the Oleksy case was "pure political provocation".Perhaps so. The allegation originated from the political camp of Lech Walesa last month not long after he was defeated by another former Communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski, in presidential elections. On the other hand, Mr Oleksy has admitted it was "imprudent" of him in the 1980s to have befriended a man, Vladimir Alganov, who later identified himself as the chief KGB agent in Poland.What cannot be doubted is that the Oleksy scandal has flared up at a particularly sensitive time for Poland and Russia.

In Mr Oleksy's case, the decision of Polish military prosecutors to investigate the former Communist prime minister - who was chosen yesterday as leader of the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland, the core faction of the Democratic Left Alliance - reflects the fact that Poland was under the thumb of a Moscow-controlled Communist Party for four decades.Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, the successor to the foreign espionage wing of the Soviet KGB, was angered last week by the suggestion that Mr Oleksy had served first as a Soviet agent, and then as a Russian spy, from 1982 to 1995. A Polish foreign ministry spokesman, Pawel Dobrowolski, expressed concern that the book had been distributed in the Russian parliament, where Communists and nationalists are heavily represented.The affair illustrates how the bitter legacy of history continues to sour relations between Poland and Russia. It upholds this version of events even though, after years of prevarication, Moscow now officially accepts that the NKVD was responsible. Worse still, the author contemptuously describes the murdered officers as "aggressive idiots" and brands the pre-1939 Polish state "a gluttonous European prostitute". As Mr Oleksy was announcing his departure last Wednesday, the Polish foreign ministry drew attention to the publication of a book in Moscow that is crammed with lies and insults about Poland. The book, The Katyn Detective Story, by Yuri Mukhin contends that thousands of Polish army officers murdered at Katyn forest during the Second World War were killed by the Nazis, rather than by the Soviet NKVD secret police.

THE RESIGNATION of Poland's Prime Minister, Jozef Oleksy, who is under investigation over allegations that he spied for Moscow, is not the only sign that a big chill is freezing Polish-Russian relations. I know the West is not always as wonderful as they make it out to be.''. A female Turkish TV reporter went further, climbing over Sarah's family's garden wall, knocking on the back door and shouting: "Sarah, Sarah, let me in! I'm just a kid of 20 and I want to share your feelings!'' She was met by a ripe rebuff: "If you think I am just a kid, get the f--- out.''Among themselves, some Turks also acknowledge that one of the attractions of Sarah for Musa must have been the dream of a better life in the West. Sarah decided on her drastic course of action after Britain had rejected a visa application by Musa, who has not yet done his military service."I know how this boy thinks,'' said a local hotel keeper ''He has seen all the films He thinks the West will give him a comfortable life So he chose a woman But it turned out to be the wrong woman at the wrong time But I've been in Germany and I came back. I was constantly asked whether young teenage marriages were so much worse than young single teenage pregnancies or drug addiction, problems that are only just beginning to surface in Turkey.Others challenged the idea that Sarah's exchanging of a cold life in Braintree, teased in school for being a podgy and having a squint, was necessarily worse than the jealously protective blanket of love and attention that she was clearly getting from her new Turkish family.In the end, however, there may prove to have been little that was saintly in the struggle for Sarah or for her story I slipped into the family's confidence as a translator. If the two families agreed to the marriage, what forcing has there been?'' Other commentators agreed: everybody was happy except for the Turkish government, keen to prove its imported European laws were at work, and British public opinion, always sniffy on the subject of Turks."The English popular press just loves to look down its nose at Turkey,'' said the noted foreign affairs commentator Sami Kohen. Turkish anger was further fuelled by prejudice and distortions in tabloid reports.

The Sun's remarkable break of Sarah's story last Monday maintained, for instance, that Kahramanmaras was a "village.'' In fact, about 400,000 people live in this bustling market town, centre of a booming cotton, textile and farming region. Sarah's "father-in-law'' may be a "humble caretaker", but he has a rent-free flat, two houses of his own, a shop and a car.The Turks are also upset at the British assumption of moral superiority. Moreover, Musa said on Friday that Sarah, who moved to Turkey in November, is now six weeks pregnant and ''wants to be a mother'', though Sarah yesterday denied that she was pregnant.''Sarah felt herself ugly," wrote novelist Duyge Asena, "and loved Musa when he loved her. She changed her country, her religion, her way of life for me.

They didn't throw her in jail, but they have turned Turkey and England into one big prison for her.''Musa's English communication with Sarah is not exactly Shakespearean. A letter from jail, addressed "Hello Hony Bony'', read: "My very much bad because my heart only you for working understand but England manager to get you please understand my heart work finish and for ever sleep I love you...''But love is blind for a curious coalition of Islamic revivalists, delighted by their new convert, and liberal and feminist commentators outraged at the Turkish court's clumsy virginity testing of Sarah and the jailing of Musa on charges of statutory rape. "My only crime is to have loved,'' Musa told Turkish television on Wednesday night, speaking from his concrete prison outside of town "My wife loves me too. The fact is, we're all mixed up.''The provincial governor of Kahramanmaras came up with a formula to square the legal circle, calling Sarah and Musa "not officially married, but married according to our customs and beliefs''. Even the line taken by Turkey's racy media has been quite different to the more prudish tones detected in Britain.With Musa still languishing romantically in jail and Sarah defying British officials trying to order her home, Turks were told of a story of love, a latter-day fable of Leyla and Majnoun - a Middle Eastern Romeo and Juliet - in which Britain and Turkey were cast as the Houses of Montagu and Capulet. They wanted to move from the outdated Islamic sharia law of their Ottoman grandparents, but had not completely assimilated the Swiss civil code dictated to them by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of republican Turkey, in the 1920s."It's not just the civil code,'' a baggy trousered local notable said as we broke the Ramadan fast together. ''We also imported the Italian penal code, the French commercial code and some laws from Germany And underneath we still have our old customs.