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Polish MPs debate resolution to support Ukraine

27.01.2022 09:30
Polish lawmakers have debated a proposed resolution to support Ukraine in the face of possible aggression from Russia.
Polands Sejm lower house of parliament.
Poland's Sejm lower house of parliament.PAP/Leszek Szymański

The draft resolution, which has been approved by the Polish lower house's foreign-affairs committee, urges members of NATO and the European Union to help Ukraine amid intensifying tensions with Moscow, Poland's PAP news agency reported.

Poland’s ruling conservatives Law and Justice (PiS) on Wednesday called on the lower house of parliament to adopt the resolution.

The main opposition grouping, the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), voiced its support as well, with MP Paweł Kowal saying: “International law, which allowed Poles to feel safe for decades, is being broken, violated before our eyes.”

Kowal appealed for unity, asking the government "not to waste a minute" and act through the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which Poland is chairing in 2022. 

“This is our matter; we will all be affected by the consequences of inaction,” he said.

Leftist MPs vowed to back the resolution, the PAP news agency reported. MP Maciej Konieczny said: “We must do everything to avoid war, to avoid a victory for Russia’s imperialist policy.”

Czesław Siekierski, a lawmaker for the centrist Polish People’s Party-Polish Coalition (PSL-KP) grouping, criticised “attempts by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to redraw the geopolitical map,” and called on "the nations of Europe" to "stop this unimaginable evil.”

Meanwhile, Paweł Zalewski of Poland 2050 told the house that Ukraine must be helped because “the Polish people know well what it’s like when the cemeteries of a peaceful country begin to fill up with graves of soldiers ... they know it from the history of their own country.”

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk said in a media interview on Wednesday that Ukraine had a right to choose its alliances and that there was no return to the kind of world order based on spheres of influence that existed in the Cold War days.

(pm/gs)

Source: PAP