Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski expressed hope that Ukraine will resolve its historical issues with Poland “in a spirit of gratitude” for the assistance provided by the state. He said this in an interview with PAP, reports UNN.
Sikorski acknowledged that history was a problem in relations with Ukraine, but expressed hope that Ukraine would resolve it “in a spirit of gratitude” for Polish assistance.
“For several hundred years spent between neighbors, the account of grievances is never 'one way,'” Sikorsky said in an interview, answering a question about negotiations with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy.
“Therefore, we have a choice: either we can deal with the past, which is very important, our victims deserve a Christian burial, but unfortunately we are not able to bring them back to life; or we can focus on building a common future so that demons do not emerge in our societies and so that a common enemy does not threaten us again in the future. I prefer the latter approach,” he added.
Recall
On July 11, Poland commemorates the victims of the tragic events in Volyn at the state level. Mutual ethnic cleansing of the conflicting Polish and Ukrainian populations by the UPA, the Polish Home Army and Soviet partisans took place in the summer of 1943.
Last year, Poland sent a request to Ukraine to exhume the remains of Poles killed in 1945 after discovering a grave in Ternopil region.