Uncompromising Strategic Partnership

On May 21 a meeting of the presidents of Ukraine and Poland was scheduled. That it was not destined to happen provoked numerous conjectures, even that the Ukrainian-Polish strategic partnership could be buried. The reason Aleksander Kwasniewski did not arrive in Ukraine might definitely appear banal to some, consisting as it did of a decision by the City Council of Lviv. The Polish leader holds another opinion, however. “The refusal to understand, evident during negotiations in December of last year between the authorities of Poland and Ukraine, does not serve the spirit of reconciliation and partnership between our countries and peoples,” declared President Kwasniewski last week.

What derailed the presidential summit was the decision of the Lviv City Council concerning the opening a memorial to Polish soldiers in the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv, which deputies passed the Thursday before last. In the opinion of the Poles, it violated previous arrangements of the Ukrainian and Polish authorities, in particular with the protocol signed by representatives of the countries late last year. By the same token, the Polish opinion was shared in Ukraine insofar as the list of conditional details in the December report, signed by the central authorities, were not taken into account by the Lviv deputies. In particular, the agreement that on a plate on the communal grave, an inscription, “To the unknown Polish soldiers who died heroically for Poland in 1918-1920,” would be etched. The Lviv residents came out against the word heroic, seeing it as representing Warsaw’s aspirations for the situation under which Galicia was subordinated before the Second World War. Similarly, according to the protocol, there should be figures of lions with boards on the memorial. There is no word of this in the City Council decision.

The Lviv variant of the settlement of the cemetery question dissatisfies Poland. It obviously would not suit any other country either, in that the local authorities in Ukraine actually neglected an intergovernmental document (for the sake of justice it is necessary to note that Kyiv also was not overly circumspect, signing the report with Poles without taking into account the position of Lviv). As a result, Ukraine has again shown its own inconsistency, and once again provided grounds for criticism. The authorities in Poland meanwhile are trying to remain more or less evenhanded. On May 21 Ukrainian journalists met with the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Poland in Ukraine Marek Ziolkowski who assured them that the cemetery incident “would not affect the Kwasniewski’s attitude toward Ukraine: in his fundamental opinion Ukraine has been, and will continue to be, our strategic partner.” Simultaneously the ambassador noted, “The question of a cemetery depends on the Ukrainian side.” Replying to a question from The Day, as to whether Warsaw was ready for new negotiations on the question, Mister Ziolkowski diplomatically noted that for the moment such an offer had not been forthcoming from Kyiv. The ambassador also repeatedly emphasized that questions concerning the cemetery would not impact at all on mutual relations. To demonstrate this, he named a list of planned meetings between Ukrainian and Polish officials. In particular, in coming days the Polish Minister of the Economy is slated to arrive in Kyiv, and later in the Polish city of Rzeszow a meeting of the two countries’ prime ministers is to be held. The most important is that of Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Aleksander Kwasniewski, planned for June. According to the ambassador, it is scheduled be held on June 21 in Rzeszow within the framework of the fifth economic forum. Perhaps June 21 will be more successful than May 21 for the leaders of Ukraine and Poland.