(Bloomberg) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Kyiv has agreed to allow the exhumation of ethnic Poles killed in World War II massacres, clearing the path to resolve a rift between the two countries.
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The breakthrough over the 80-year-old massacres in territory now belonging to Ukraine took place at a meeting between Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha in Warsaw on Tuesday.
A resolution could help address an issue that’s emerged as a potential stumbling block for Kyiv’s ambitions to gain rapid accession to the European Union. Sikorski tied accession to progress on the issue, angering President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Poland will hold the EU’s six-month rotating presidency in the first half of next year and said it wants to move swiftly with the initial phase of talks.
“Ukraine won’t block the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia massacre,” Tusk said in a post on X social media platform. “Our ministers are starting to work on the details.”
An estimated 100,000 people, including woman and children, perished in the 1943 massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in the Volhynia region. While Kyiv recognizes the atrocities, it has also called on Warsaw not to politicize the issue — and to seek ways for a peaceful settlement.
“We are working now to put together practical mechanisms to conduct search and exhumation works,” Sybiha told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve received assurances from our Polish colleagues that Ukrainian memorials in Poland will receive due attention.”
–With assistance from Volodymyr Verbianyi.
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Publish date : 2024-11-27 04:01:00
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