President Andrzej Duda may appeal to President Vladimir Putin to return Tu-154M wreckage
SCND Februrary 17, 2016
Foreign Affairs Minister Witold Wyszczykowski
Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs discussed new possibilities of recovering the wreckage of Tupolew aircraft owned by the Polish government which went down in Smolensk. In Lisicki’s program Witold Waszczykowski suggested that President Andrzej Duda may issue an appeal to Wladimir Putin in this matter.
Waszczykowski referred to a conversation that took place 3 years ago in Moscow during which he was informed that holding on to the wrecked of the aircraft was a political decision.
"I personally told this to the Russians three years ago in Moscow. By holding on to the wreckage, they are reinforcing our conviction that this is a political instrument against Poland, and that they have something to hide, that the crash in fact looked differently. My representative repeated the same message in Moscow (in January of 2016). He received a succinct response that this is indeed a political issue, and that any decision to return the wreckage must come from the highest political authority in Moscow," said Wyszczykowski
The Foreign Minister stressed the fact that regarding this issue everything depends on Putin. Poland will be seeking help in obtaining the wreckage by formally approaching her allies and international arbitration institutions.
“Putin is the one who makes decisions regarding everything pertaining to Russia. If the answer will be negative once again, we will formally approach our allies for support, be it bilaterally or through institutions. The former government made no such efforts. All the questions raised were informal,” pointed out Minister Waszczykowski.
The Foreign Minister said that it might become necessary to have President Andrzej Duda make a direct appeal to Wladimir Putin to return the wreckage. We are considering presenting President Duda with such a recommendation.
Retired Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Senior Scientific Intelligence officer Eugene Poteat, goes on the record:
"The trip to Smolensk was expected to highlight Russia finally admitting culpability in the massacre, after long having blamed it on the Germans, an atrocity they had tried to conceal for over 70 years.
As for the reception committee, it had different ideas. Putin wasn’t looking forward to such an occasion. Into this poisonous reception brew was President Kaczynski’s well-known public criticism of Moscow and Putin, a habit that has ended the lives of others within Russia – and abroad. A few discouraging Russian requirements – that Kaczynski could not attend in any official capacity – did not halt the Poles. Kaczynski would go anyway on non-official, “personal” business. To Russians, such a distinction would be meaningless, not lessening the possible international excoriation of such an event. A problem ripe for a modern, Russian solution: a tragic, ‘natural’ accident."
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