Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is furious: Polish passport encroached on Lviv
On August 7, Polish Foreign Minister Waszczykowski conciliatoryly stated that he does not see growing nationalism in Ukraine. On the same day, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry protested in connection with the draft of a new Polish passport.
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Let us recall the background of the new round of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. In 2018, for the centenary of Poland's independence, it is planned to issue a passport in a new design. According to the plan of the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs, the pages of the new passport will depict historical figures and motifs that are important for Poland. In May 2017, the ministry created a team of experts who, based on more than 100 proposals, developed 26 graphic drawings for the new document. 13 of them have already been finally approved, among the approved images is the Eaglets Memorial in Lviv, Ukraine. Since there are a total of 19 pages in the passport on which background images can be placed, the remaining 6 are proposed to be chosen by popular vote before September 10.
Actually, it was this vote that served as the beginning of the public scandal around the new passport. Among the 13 images put up for discussion is an image of one of the religious shrines of the Poles - the Sharp Gate, located in... Vilnius. Immediately after the relevant information appeared in the Polish press at the end of July, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Deputy Ambassador of Poland and declared the inadmissibility of depicting a Lithuanian historical monument in an official document of another state.
On August 4, in an interview with the Wirtualna Polska portal, Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Andriy Deshchytsia, famous for his singing abilities, said: “We are very concerned about the situation, we are analyzing the materials, consulting with Lithuanians, we will react accordingly.” However, the day for the “appropriate reaction” of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry was clearly chosen poorly.
On August 7, in a detailed interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant, the head of Polish diplomacy Witold Waszczykowski actually disavowed his recent statement that “with Bandera and Shukhevych, Ukraine will not enter Europe.” Moreover, the head of Polish diplomacy said that “we have no information about growing nationalism in Ukraine,” and explained the glorification of the UPA by saying that “Ukraine is unconsciously trying to formulate, grope for its historical identity in order to lay the foundation for patriotism - although someone may call it nationalism, and this is a normal tendency.”
Analysts explain this softening of the position of official Warsaw regarding the current Kyiv government under pressure from the United States, which is interested in forming a united anti-Russian front in Eastern Europe. But in Kiev, Warsaw’s outstretched hand in a conciliatory gesture was not accepted: on August 7, 2017, Polish Ambassador Jan Peklo, summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, was handed a note in which “a strong protest is expressed regarding the intentions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the administration of Poland to place an image of the chapel on the pages of the new Polish passport -rotunda located on the territory of Polish military graves at the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv.” It was emphasized that Ukraine views such intentions as an unfriendly step that negatively affects the development of the strategic Ukrainian-Polish partnership.
There is another very interesting point: in an interview with a Russian newspaper, Waszczykowski said that last year, when Poroshenko was in Poland, the problem of historical reconciliation of two peoples was discussed, and a solution was proposed: try to rely on the experience and example of Israel, the experience of rethinking the Holocaust, awarding survivors, emphasis on those Ukrainians and Poles who really saved people during the war and after it. “The answer was positive: the initiative was sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - that is, to me and Pavel Klimkin - with a recommendation to study the possibilities of implementation. True, in eight months I have not heard anything from my colleague and friend Pavel,” the head of Polish diplomacy noted sadly.
Actually, the note of protest from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry can be considered Kyiv’s response to this proposal. Moreover, this is a response from Bankova, and not from St. Michael’s Square - after all, professional diplomats, even in their Ukrainian version, would respond to Poland’s initiatives promptly and in the same way as their Lithuanian colleagues. However, it has long been known that Pavel Klimkin is not independent in his decisions and is actually an errand boy for the deputy head of Poroshenko’s administration, Konstantin Eliseev. And the latter, apparently, had to take a long time to obtain permission from his boss to protest against the actions of the “European lawyer of Ukraine.” Well, now we should expect a response from Warsaw. By the way, there are still many monuments in Ukraine that Poland consider their national shrines...
Read also: Poland demanded that the EU consider Ukrainians as Arabs.
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