The Ambassador of Poland said that he “does not see a tragedy” in disputes with Ukraine about the UPA
Polish Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Peklo believes that there is dynamic economic and military cooperation between Ukraine and Poland, at the same time, the historical dialogue is currently not going through the best phase, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
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He stated this in an interview with the Kyiv publication Delovaya Stolitsa.
“I don’t think that the state of Ukrainian-Polish relations today is a tragedy. There is a certain cyclical nature in the history of our relations: in some periods they improve, but in others they can worsen. It’s like between neighbors: they quarreled and made up. Despite the not-so-easy phase in our relations, more than a million Ukrainian citizens work and study in Poland, and both sides are happy... Therefore, there is a very dynamic relationship between us, which is not so easy to spoil,” Peklo said.
He also noted that there is military cooperation and active economic contacts between our states, including between cities and regions. According to the diplomat, there are new investments; the Polish side has also allocated a 100 million euro loan for border infrastructure.
“Therefore, I would not talk about the worst crisis or collapse of Polish-Ukrainian relations. But we must admit that our historical dialogue is now going through not the best phase,” stated Peklo.
In this context, he recalled that it all started with the April dismantling by members of Polish public organizations of an illegal monument to OUN-UPA militants at a cemetery in the village of Gruszowice in the Przemysl district of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of Poland.
The ambassador admitted that this was done in a “scandalous manner,” and then there was a reaction from Ukraine - the permission previously issued to Polish historians to conduct search work and exhumation in Volyn was revoked.
“From that moment on, the problem began to grow like a snowball and reached the political level. To be honest, on both the Polish and Ukrainian sides there are marginal groups of useful (for Russia) idiots who want to ruin our good neighborly relations. And, unfortunately, they have reached the mainstream... But I think that the meeting of the Presidents of Poland and Ukraine, scheduled for December 13 in Kharkov, will still take place. And I believe that we need to separate issues of economics, culture, etc. from the historical dialogue,” the diplomat noted.
Polish Ambassador Says He "Sees No Tragedy" in UPA Disputes with Ukraine