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Polish foreign minister considers matter with Russian bikers closed

The motorcycle marathon organized by the Night Wolves was "a demonstration and political provocation" which "does not serve good to Polish-Russian relations," Polish Foreign Minister said
Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna EPA/TOBIAS HASE
Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna
© EPA/TOBIAS HASE

WARSAW, April 29. /TASS/. The matter of denying entry to Poland to Russian Night Wolves bikers is now closed, Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna said on Wednesday.

"I think that we should consider this matter closed and look for common interests in Polish-Russian relations, for common good experience, for instance, local border control or cooperation at the level of municipalities," Schetyna told the Polish radio.

The foreign minister noted that Poland did not hamper entry to the country for other Russian groups that wanted to honor the memory of victims of the World War II in Berlin because "their aims were open clear." The motorcycle marathon organized by the Night Wolves was "a demonstration and political provocation" which "does not serve good to Polish-Russian relations," Schetyna said. "We want them [bilateral relations] to be normal and stable. That’s why we should exclude everything that can harm them," he noted.

On April 27, the Polish authorities denied entry to the country for Russian bikers from the Night Wolves who participated in the Moscow-Berlin motorcycle marathon dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Victory Day. Germany earlier revoked visas of several participants of the marathon. Initially, the route lay through Minsk, Brest, Wroclaw, Brno, Bratislava, Vienna, Munich and Prague.

The Polish Foreign Ministry said the reason for denying entry lay in "lack of necessary concrete information about the group’s plans on the territory of Poland."

Russia’s Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreev said on Tuesday that Poland’s decision to deny entry to Night Wolves bikers will negatively affect bilateral relations between Warsaw and Moscow. "There were no grounds for such decision," Andreev told Rossiya 1 TV channel. "We regret that such a decision was made," he added. "Of course, such situations cannot go unnoticed for our future relations," the diplomat noted. "The 70th anniversary of Victory Day and everything connected to it is definitely a very sensitive topic for us," he stressed.