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New ambassador calls for speedy return of Smolensk plane wreck

PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle 13.08.2014 09:18
Poland's new ambassador in Moscow has said the delay in returning the 2010 Smolensk plane wreck to Poland is “amazing”.

Smolensk
Smolensk plane wreck, April 2010: photo - wikipedia/CC

In an interview for the Russian Novosti news agency, Ambassador Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said she was amazed that the wreck of the Polish plane, which crashed in Smolensk over four years ago, killing the Polish president Lech Kaczynski and 95 others, has not yet been returned to Poland and that the return of the presidential plane “has a symbolic significance for Poland”.

Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz also supported the idea of a speedy introduction of a visa-free regime between Poland and Russia.

“We would like to see the highest possible number of Russian citizens visiting Poland. It is important for them to see what kind of neighbour Poland is,” she said.

Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Twitter, however, that the abolition of visas will be possible “only when the Russian Federation creates conditions under which EU sanctions could be lifted”.

Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, who served as deputy foreign minister until earlier this year, takes over her ambassadorial post in the autumn.

She will be the first woman to serve as Poland’s Ambassador in Moscow. (mk/pg)

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