2024-10-03 15:01 update: 2024-10-03, 15:02
Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, has remarked that Ukraine is hinting at a possible resolution concerning the exhumation of victims from the Volhynia massacre, citing a recent declaration from the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP).
Polish authorities, including the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) have been demanding Kyiv's consent for years to exhume and properly bury victims of those tragic events.
"Simply, I hope that this Christian duty will be carried out," Sikorski told state-owned Polish Radio Three during an interview on Thursday.
He pointed out that, on Wednesday, the UINP had declared its intention to begin searches next year for the remains of victims of mass executions in the Rivne region in western Ukraine. The decision follows a number of requests from Polish citizens seeking to locate and exhume the bodies of their family members killed in the tragedy.
Sikorski added that there was a consensus in Poland regarding the matter, with several notable politicians advocating for its resolution. These include Polish President Andrzej Duda, Speaker of the Sejm (the lower house of parliament - PAP) Szymon Holownia and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.
He also mentioned that while on a visit to Kyiv in September, he had discussed the matter with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. "I received assurances that the matter would be resolved," he said, adding that this would enhance Polish-Ukrainian relations.
The foreign minister was also asked about his view regarding Kosiniak-Kamysz's assertion that Poland would not support Ukraine's accession to the European Union unless the matter of exhumations is addressed. "I keep convincing the Ukrainian partners that it would be better to resolve this issue before we have to make such drastic choices," he responded, adding that a favourable resolution may be forthcoming.
In the spring of 2017, Ukraine banned all search and exhumation of Polish victims of war and other conflicts on the territory of Ukraine following the removal of a memorial to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Hruszowiece, south-eastern Poland.
Poland and Ukraine have been disputing the role of the ultra-nationalist Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the UPA, which in 1943-45 massacred around 100,000 Poles in a bout of ethnic cleansing. While Warsaw views these events as mass organized genocide, Kyiv sees it as an effect of a symmetrical armed conflict. (PAP)
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