WARSAW, April 4 (RIA Novosti) – Relations between Poland and Russia have seen some improvement, but are still burdened by some unresolved issues, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Katarzyna Pełczynska-Nalecz said on Thursday.
“Among the most important unresolved issues, which burden the Russian-Polish relations, are issues concerning the Smolensk [presidential] aircraft crash [in 2010], particularly the return of the plane’s remains to Poland… The Foreign Ministry believes the delay of almost three years is ungrounded,” the diplomat said.
Progress, she said, has been made in the trade and economic spheres, as Russia is Poland’s main trade partner outside the European Union, while Russia's share of total Polish exports totaled 24 percent in 2012.
A Tu-154 plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and a host of top officials crashed in heavy fog as it attempted to land at an airfield near the western Russian city of Smolensk.
The delegation was flying to Smolensk to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1940 Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police. All 96 people onboard the plane died.
