Presidents Medvedev and Komorowski in Warsaw last November; photo - PAPNews on Saturday that Russian authorities had amended the plaque, erasing the reference to the 1940 Katyn massacre – the anniversary of which precipitated President Kacznyski's flight to Smolensk last year - caused public outcry in Poland.
On Sunday, President Komorowski took part in commemorative ceremonies marking the
one-year anniversary of the Smolensk disaster which killed President Kaczynski and 95 others in western Russia.
Asked yesterday whether Komorowski would go ahead as planned and lay a wreath at the plaque, Tomasz Nalecz, a spokesman from the presidential office and a historical advisor, said that the matter was “problematic”.
Nalecz said that the president would find a way to honour the victims “without breaking Polish hearts.”
The wreath-laying is due to take place at 14.00 CET.
The Russian Foreign Office has communicated that it informed Poland in advance that the plaque was going to be altered. However, the Polish side has countered that it gave a negative opinion on the proposals, and that Warsaw was not given final confirmation that the wording would be changed on Friday night.
The original inscription noted that President Kaczynski's delegation was “on the way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet crime of genocide in the Katyn Forest, carried out on prisoners of war, officers of the Polish army, in 1940.”
Moscow had previously rejected the use of the word genocide. In March 2005, following Moscow's long-running investigation, Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov declared that the crime could not be classified as genocide.
The Katyn crime takes in the murder of approximately 22,500 Polish citizens, mostly reserve officers representing Poland's pre-war elite.
Moscow officially admitted guilt in 1990.
Today's ceremonies will be the first time that the heads of both the Polish and Russian states have stood shoulder to shoulder in Katyn.
(nh/pg)Source:
IAR/PAP