WARSAW, October 7. /TASS/. Supplies of just a few tanks to Ukraine from Poland will not help solve Ukraine’s problems, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said on Tuesday.
“There is no ban on sales of weapons to Ukraine, as to many other countries,” he said in an evening programme on the local television. In his words, Ukraine rather needed a helping hand in conducting profound reforms. “Sales of a couple of tanks will not help solve Ukraine’s problems,” he said.
The Polish president said he was confident that Ukraine’s path to security was through profound reforms. “If Ukraine want to have a chance to join the Western world, it must reform all its spheres, including defence and security,” Komorowski said, adding that Warsaw was ready to help Kiev.
Touching on the forthcoming elections to Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) due on October 26, Komorowski said that the voting would make it clear who would be responsible for the country. “I hope /the elections/ will yield a good government with a broad grassroots support,” he added.
For its part Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna saidPoland should be an ambassador of Ukraine in the European Union but maintain communications channels with Russia.
Ukraine “has no other way to Brussels, to Europe, to unification with the European family but the one via Warsaw,” he said in an evening programme on the local television. “Poland should be an ambassador of Ukraine and its European aspirations, but, on the other hand, it is important for us to preserve communications channels with Russia.”
“We don’t want a war in the east. We stand for self-determination, territorial integrity and the right of sovereign nations to make decisions on their future,” he said.
The Polish foreign minister stressed that the most important thing at the moment was to stop bloodshed.
“Today, it is vital to observe the truce, the ceasefire regime. People should not die. Only then it is time for diplomacy and real politics,” Schetyna said.
He said he was confident that his country’s foreign policy in respect of eastern neighbors should be in line with the European one. That is why, in his words, his first visits after assuming his office were to Berlin and Paris. He said he saw big perspectives in the Weimar Triangle (Poland, Germany, France).
When asked about a possibility of further sanctions against Russia, he said Poland would be in favour of such sanction if Moscow did not change its policy.