President: Poland could join possible UN peace operation in Ukraine - News - National Security Bureau

08.04.2015

President: Poland could join possible UN peace operation in Ukraine

Poland would not decline participation in a possible UN peacekeeping operation in Ukraine, said President Bronislaw Komorowski in Kiev Wednesday.

A possible peacekeeping operation would require a decision by the UN Security Council and that "will certainly not be easy" to make, Komorowski said appearing at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Poland will support such a solution, he added.

"We think that a solution based on the participation of non-aligned states is possible, but if decisions go in another direction, Poland will not decline to take part in such an operation," Komorowski declared.

Petro Poroshenko said that an UN peacekeeping force would be the best way to de-escalate the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. The first stage of such a solution would be a decision taken by the UN Security Council, the second stage would involve sending a UN force and its participation in peacekeeping operations. The first stage could be implemented in a matter of weeks, the second stage in a matter of a few months, Poroshenko opined.

On Thursday, the second day of his official visit to Ukraine, President Komorowski will meet with head of the Supreme Council of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman and address the Ukrainian parliament as the first Polish president. In the evening the Polish head of state will meet with PM Arseny Yatseniuk and Poles living in Ukraine.

On Thursday afternoon the Polish and Ukrainian presidents will visit Bykivnia to attend observances marking the 75th anniversary of the 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre of around 22 thousand Polish officers by Soviet security.

The fourth Polish War Cemetery where almost 3.5 thousand Polish victims are buried opened in 2012 at the site of the Memorial to Victims of Totalitarianism in Bykivnia. Three other Polish war cemeteries are situated in Katyn Forest, Mednoye and Kharkiv-Pyatikhatky.

In the spring of 1940 the Soviet NKVD executed around 22,000 Polish POWs held in Soviet camps and prisons in Katyn Forest, western Russia.


Source: PAP