Grain issue won’t affect Polish-Ukrainian relations: Polish president
The issue of Ukrainian grain imports must be resolved, but it won’t affect Polish-Ukrainian relations in a significant way, Poland’s president has said. It is reported by Upmp.news with reference to “Polskie Radio”.
Andrzej Duda made the statement at a conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine, Common Future, in the western Polish city of Poznań on Friday, the state news agency PAP reported.
The president said: “For me, cooperation with Ukraine and support for Ukraine is an issue of historic importance, between our nations and between our countries.”
Duda added that Poland’s assistance for Ukraine and its citizens fleeing the Russian invasion, also extended by the Polish public and by Polish businesses, “constitutes an enormous capital of interpersonal ties that has emerged between our countries and nations.”
Referring to the issue of Ukrainian grain imports, the Polish president said: “I have no doubt whatsoever that the dispute over the supply of grain from Ukraine to the Polish market is an absolutely secondary section of Polish-Ukrainian relations as a whole.”
He stressed: “It’s simply an issue that we must resolve between ourselves.”
‘Polish businesses have huge role to play in reconstruction of Ukraine’
Referring to the reconstruction of Ukraine, Duda told the Common Future conference: “A Ukraine that is rebuilt, and integrated with Europe, will definitely take an important place on the European market and in the European future, also our future.”
He stressed that Poland had been supporting Ukraine right from the beginning of Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.
The Polish president stated: “We are making every effort to help Ukraine not only maintain independence, but also, as far as possible, sustain the Ukrainian economy. This is extremely important also in view of Ukraine’s aspirations to join the European Union and the conditions it will have to meet to achieve this goal.”
He said that Ukraine had to implement “important and challenging reforms” even while being at war, but added that this was also a “big opportunity” for Kyiv.
Duda declared: “We can support Ukraine in this undertaking, by helping raise the country from the destruction of war. In my view, Polish businesses have a huge role to play here,” the PAP news agency reported.
Some 2,000 Polish companies, in sectors such as construction, energy, agri-food, pharmaceuticals and IT, have so far declared an interest in projects to rebuild Ukraine, according to the Polish government.
Friday is day 576 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
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Source: PAP, Common Future, prezydent.pl