Polish prime minister Donald Tusk criticised as "unacceptable" today a Russian report on the April plane crash that killed Poland's president, a view that may upset Warsaw's cautious rapprochement with Moscow.
President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria and 94 others, mostly senior Polish officials, died on April 10th when their Tu-154 plane crashed in thick fog near Smolensk airport in western Russia.
Russia, keen to mend long-strained ties with Poland, an increasingly important trade partner and influential member of the European Union, recently handed to Poland its report on the causes of the crash after a months-long investigation.
"From the Polish point of view, the draft report from the Russian side as it has been sent is without question unacceptable," Mr Tusk said in televised comments to reporters in Brussels on the sidelines of a European Union summit.
The Russian report has not been made public, and Mr Tusk did not go into details of what it contained.
The report does not comply fully with the Chicago Convention which regulates international air travel, he said. "This negligence and mistakes or lack of positive reaction to what Poland has been asking for, all these things allow us to say that some of the report's conclusions are without foundation," Mr Tusk said.
Russia is expected to study the Polish comments on the report and the two will then attempt to write a conclusive version of what happened.
Poland's main representative on the investigation, Edmund Klich, has already expressed dissatisfaction with Russia's stance. For example, the two sides disagree about whether the flight should be classified as military or civilian - a potentially crucial point in assigning responsibility for the decision to land in poor weather.
Mr Kaczynski's identical twin brother Jaroslaw, who heads Poland's main opposition party, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS), has accused Mr Tusk and Moscow of effectively engineering the crash and of collaborating to cover up its real causes.
With parliamentary elections due next autumn, Mr Tusk cannot afford to appear too soft in his dealings with Moscow, Poland's overlord in the Cold War era, even though most Poles support his government's drive to improve economic relations with Russia.
On a visit to Warsaw last week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signalled Moscow's interest in taking part in Polish privatisations, especially in the energy sector and also promised to co-operate with Poland over the plane crash investigation.
Reuters