Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said that the commemorative plaque suddenly unveiled on the wall of the Presidential Palace on Thursday was a sign of goodwill and that he hopes it will go some way to ending the dispute over the Smolensk cross.

“I hope [the plaque]” is seen as a sign of good will. Nobody can question the good faith of President Komorowski when it comes to the need for a permanent remembrance of the mourning which followed the death of President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria and the victims of Smolensk,” Tusk said at the Parliament building on Thursday.

Leftist politician Bartosz Arłukowicz said that the controversy over the Smolensk cross will not end with the plaque. In fact, he said, the plaque will only add to the momentum of the criticisms from the Law and Justice party, which has backed the protestors who want the Smolensk cross to stay where it is outsider the Presidential Palace and not be moved to the nearby St Anne’s church.

“This is not about memory, or about honouring people who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy. This is a political conflict stoked by Law and Justice . So I have no doubt that soon there will begin a debate about whether [the plaque] good, bad, too big, too small, made from the right material…. ”Arłukowicz said.

Grzegorz Napieralski, leader of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD - a party which has called for a ban on religious symbols in state institutions - criticised the secrecy in which the plaque project was carried out in. Minutes after it was announced that the Warsaw heritage department had given the go ahead for the plaque to be put on the Presidential Palace wall, officials gathered to unveil the plaque, without advance warning to anyone.

“This was unnecessary as it has raised suspicion, questions and accusations,” Napieralski is quoted by TVP television as saying.

The fears expressed by the SLD were manifest in the reaction of Law and Justice MP Jolanta Szczypińska, who said she was surprised to find out about the news of the plaque. “I found out about it on television,” she said. “Screwing a plaque to a wall will not settle this dispute,” she warned.

It was also announced yesterday that a second commemorative plaque will be placed in the chapel in the president’s residence.