PM Tusk yesterday in parliament; below right, Karoslaw Kaczynski - photos - PAPPrime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament yesterday that it is “a convenient truth for some that Russia was only to blame” for the Smolensk plane disaster last April, during a debate on the death of President Kaczynski and 95 others in western Russia last year.
The Smolensk disaster has been used in a “political game” in Poland, Tusk told MPs in a stormy session of the lower house of parliament in the wake of the Russian report into the causes of the disaster.
Following the plane crash on 10 April “not everyone has been interested in finding the complete truth about the causes of the disaster and, above all, neither has everyone been interested in avoiding turning the Smolensk disaster into a disaster in relations between Poland and its neighbours, including the Russian Federation,” said Tusk, referring to MPs from the opposition Law and Justice party, who have sought to pin the blame on Moscow exclusively.
Discovering the truth about the disaster, achieving peace in international relations and ensuring stability in the country have been the goals of the government since 10 April, said Tusk.
The truth, that the cause of the tragedy lay in mistakes on both sides, is “inconvenient” for some, he said, referring to a presentation of evidence by Interior Minister Jerzy Miller this week which showed that blaming either the Russians or simply the Polish crew for the crash was not the full story.
“For Poland it is better to know the truth and not have a war than not know the truth and have a war,” he told a packed lower house of parliament on Wednesday.
The Polish government would be releasing its finding into the cause of the disaster in the fullness of time, said Tusk. “Impatience is the enemy of accuracy,” he told MPs.
Russia to blame, says Kaczynski
After Tusk stood down, leader of the opposition Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of the late president, left the chamber when Interior Minister Jerzy Miller made his speech, only to return when he had finished. “I didn’t think he had anything to say,” Kaczynski told reporters after the debate.
The Law and Justice leader then took the floor and pledged support “to help the government out of the trap” it had got itself into since the disaster by “making many errors which it has had made from the beginning,” he said.
In Kaczynski’s opinion, the blame for the disaster lay totally on the Russian side.
He rejected the main thesis of the Russian report that the reason why the plane attempted to land at an airport surrounded by fog was that the crew were pressured by the then head of Poland’s air force “General Blasik [who was in the cockpit] and probably the president.”
Later, Kaczynski told the TVN24 news station that the “Polish political establishment is terrified by Smolensk - I don’t know why.”
He went on to repeat allegations that the government is indirectly responsible for the tragedy. “Donald Tusk led the great campaign against President Lech Kaczynski, who downgraded his safety,” he said.
“I would like it that PM Tusk did not take on the role of Tatyana Anodina [who led the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee’s report into the disaster], referring to what he claimed was the weak response of the government to the committee’s report last week.
Kaczynski promised he would cooperate with the government but not at the cost of “relations with Russia at any price.” (pg)
Source: PAP/IAR