Polish PM to skip V4 summit in Israel
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
18.02.2019 08:00
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said he will not take part in a summit this week of four Central European countries in Jerusalem, according to officials.
PM Mateusz Morawiecki. Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell
The meeting of the regional Visegrad Group is scheduled for February 18-19. The regional cooperation platform brings together Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Morawiecki’s decision not to attend comes after a rumpus over comments reportedly made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a conference on the Middle East in Warsaw last week.
Netanyahu’s reported comments were seen as suggesting Polish complicity in the Holocaust, carried out by Nazi Germany in World War II.
But Netanyahu’s office said that the Israeli PM “spoke of Poles and not the Polish people or the country of Poland. This was misquoted and misrepresented in press reports and was subsequently corrected by the journalist who issued the initial misstatement.”
Morawiecki said: "In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke only of individual cases of collaborators.”
The efforts of thousands of Poles who risked their lives by helping Jews during World War II have been recognised by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
(pk)
Source: PAP