Polish Ambassador to Ukraine: Kyiv was first to start denying Poles entry to Ukraine
The Ambassador of Poland to Ukraine, Jan Pieklo, believes that Ukraine was the first country to start the practice of creating “black lists” for Poles, the diplomat told the Delovaya stolitsa newspaper.
“As for non-grata persons, Ukraine was the first who started this practice. A year ago, the Mayor of the Polish city of Przemysl, Robert Choma, was denied entry to Ukraine. A little bit later the same happened to a Polish professor from Lublin. Then Poland retaliated and denied entry to Ukrainian diplomat, Svyatoslav Sheremeta,” Jan Pieklo said.
But on the whole, Mr. Pieklo said the relations between Poland and Ukraine have not hit the lowest low.
“It is true that our historic dialogue is currently going through quite a turbulent phase… Poland and Ukraine must both take the responsibility for that because both in Poland and Ukraine there are marginal groups of useful (to Russia) idiots who want to damage our good neighborly relations. And unfortunately they’ve crept into the mainstream,” the Ambassador said.
According to the Ambassador, Ukraine and Poland need to separate the questions of the historical past from the current agenda.
The Ambassador expressed hope that the upcoming visit of Polish President Andrzej Duda to Ukraine will help mend the relations.
“I think, after the visit of the President there will be a new re-start for Ukrainian-Polish relations. Possibly, if Ukraine agrees to lift the ban on search-exhumation works by Polish historians in Volyn oblast (western Ukraine) and Poland responds in a reciprocal manner, then soon we will see the repair of the tarnished image of our relations,” Mr. Pieklo said.
As it was earlier reported, the Mayor of Przemysl discovered that he had been banned for five years from entering Ukraine on when he was denied entry by border guards at the Shehyni border checkpoint on January 17, 2017. One month prior to that event the March of Eaglets of Przemysl and Lviv was held in Przemysl during which one of the participants started a chant “Death to Ukrainians!” in Polish. The event was conducted under the patronage of Przemysl Mayor, Robert Choma. The ban was lifted at the behest of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.
The referenced professor from Lublin is historian Czeslaw Partacz, whose specialty is Ukraine.
Svyatoslav Sheremeta is the Secretary of the State Interdepartmental Commission for Perpetuating the Memory of the Participants of Antiterrorist Operation, Victims of War, and Political Repressions who was denied entry to Poland on November 18th .