Ukraine and Poland initiate working group to address historical issues

Poland and Ukraine have agreed to form a joint group to address historical concerns, and intend to hold a meeting soon.

Source: Vasyl Bodnar, Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland, writes Ukrinform, as reported by European Pravda 

Details: According to Bodnar, the prospective bilateral working group "on the settlement of problematic issues in the historical sphere" will be overseen by the ministries of culture.

Quote: "We are working on an agenda and we want this group to get together as soon as possible," he said.

The ambassador also announced a meeting of the heads of Ukraine's and Poland's ministries of culture, Mykola Tochytskyi and Hanna Wróblewska, who will decide where and when the group's first meeting would be held.

"They should start a dialogue on a politically sensitive topic: honouring the places of historical memory in Ukraine and Poland, improving the relevant procedures," Bodnar told reporters.

The issue of the events in Volyn from 1943-1945, known in Ukrainian historiography as the Volyn tragedy and in Polish as the Volyn massacre, continues to be a source of contention in bilateral ties [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.].

Background:

• Radosław Sikorski and Andrii Sybiha, the foreign ministers of Poland and Ukraine, issued a joint statement at the end of November about the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy.
• Warsaw stated that resolving historical conflicts will be one of the mandatory requirements for Ukraine's EU entry.

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