Polish presidential candidate Nawrocki: Today I see Ukraine neither in EU nor in NATO
Polish presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, supported by the opposition Law and Justice party, said that he does not see the Ukraine of today in the EU or NATO.
The presenter said that "Donald Trump does not see Ukraine in NATO" and asked Karol Nawrocki for his opinion on this matter. Nawrocki replied that he had a fixed opinion on this issue.
"Today, I do not see Ukraine in either structure, neither in the European Union nor in NATO, until those important civilisational issues for Poles are resolved. A country that cannot answer for a very brutal crime against 120,000 of its neighbours cannot be part of international alliances," Nawrocki said on air with Polsat News.
Nawrocki, who is supported by the Law and Justice party, also stressed that Poles had supported and continue to support Ukrainians.
Nawrocki stated that the agreement on the exhumation reached between Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha was "an unnecessary trick by the head of the Polish diplomacy", and the whole issue was "introduced into the internal campaign" when Sikorski was fighting with Rafał Trzaskowski for the nomination to run for president.
[The Volyn (Volhynia) tragedy was a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943 during World War II. It was part of a long-standing rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles in what is now Ukraine's west. Poland considers the Volyn tragedy a genocide of Poles – ed.]
"We at the Institute of National Remembrance have already experienced a dozen potential breakthroughs in this matter, so for me, the enthusiasm of the head of Polish diplomacy was premature.
I want to make it clear that the Institute of National Remembrance [...] can support the government's efforts on the issue of exhumation in Volyn. The Polish case is much more important to us here. We would like to see a breakthrough, but there is no breakthrough yet," explained Nawrocki, who heads the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.
Nawrocki said that as president of the Republic of Poland, he would "make it clear to the Ukrainian side that our financial efforts, the efforts of citizens, military efforts that helped Ukraine would be met with a partnership from the Ukrainian side and the opportunity to bury our women and children".
"For me, the interests of the Poles are more important than a pat on the back," he stressed.
At the end of November, the foreign ministers of Poland and Ukraine issued a joint statement on the issue of exhumations of victims of the Volyn tragedy.
Earlier, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance said it planned to start searching for and exhuming the remains of Poles in Rivne Oblast in 2025 in response to requests from Polish citizens.