Prime Minister Donald Tusk lays a wreath at the monument to victims of the Smolensk air crash at Warsaw's Powazki military cemetery: photo - PAP/Jakub Kaminski
“I believe that the day will come when this sad, tragic anniversary of the Smolensk air crash will not be divisive, and that Poles will be able to take part in joint reflection and prayer, without negative emotions,” he said, as cited by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
“That day will come. I think that this is also what those who died there [at Smolensk] would have wanted, had they been with us today,” he added.
Tusk spoke to journalists having laid a wreath at the monument to the 96 Polish victims of the crash at the Powazki Military Cemetery in Warsaw at 6 am this morning.
The entire delegation of former President Lech Kaczynski died when the Tu-154 plane crashed in thick fog on the morning of 10 April 2010.
The delegation took in members of several political parties, as well as dignitaries including Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last president of the Polish government-in-exile in London (which functioned from WWII to 1989).
The delegation had flown to Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the World War II Katyn Crime.
After a period of relatively united mourning, the first signs of how divisive the crash would be emerged several days later, when plans emerged that late president Lech Kaczynski was to be entombed at Krakow's Wawel Cathedral, a national shrine.
Kaczynski had been a member of the conservative Law and Justice party before he became president, but the centre-right coalition government of Prime Minister Tusk was already in its first term in power.
The public debate over whether Kaczynski and his wife merited a place at Wawel Cathedal was followed by increasingly bitter debates over responsibility for the crash.
A survey published this week indicates that in spite of two official reports about the crash, Poles are sharply divided on the matter. Meanwhile, Law and Justice, now led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the late president, has regularly declared that the crash was not an accident, but the result of sabotage.
Programme of commemorations
With Prime Minister Tusk flying to Nigeria on an official visit today, state and public commemorations will continue in both Poland and Russia.
State tributes organised by the Ministry of Culture will begin at 1 pm at the Warsaw'snew national pantheon, theTemple of Divine Providence, where a mass will be led by Cardinal. Kazimierz Nycz, attended by Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski, among others.
A state delegation will also participate in ceremonies at Katyn and Smolensk. President Bronislaw Komorowski will be represented by the chief of the National Security Bureau Stanislaw Koziej. Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak will also be present.
President Komorowski will attend a mass this morning in the chapel of the Presidential Palace, to which relatives of those who died in the crash have also been invited.
Likewise, MPs will lay flowers in front of two plaques commemorating victims of the crash, following a mass in the chapel of Poland's parliament (Sejm).
Meanwhile, opposition party Law and Justice will be holding separate commemorations focused on the Krakowskie Przedmiescie thoroughfare in central Warsaw.
The tributes are being co-organised by right-wing tabloid Gazeta Polska, among other groups, and as many as 10,000 people are expected.
Marta Kaczynska, daughter of late president Lech Kaczynski, will lay a wreath at her parents' tomb in Krakow's Wawel Cathedral, joined by MPs from Law and Justice.
Other tributes are being in all of Poland's principal cities, and in many smaller localities. (nh)