Poland asks EU to push Russia to return wreckage

Published Dec. 11, 2012 at 12:18 pm

In this Sunday, April 11, 2010 file photo, Russian officials and investigators work near the wreckage of the Polish presidential plane, that crashed Saturday just outside the Smolensk airport, western Russia. Forensic testing has proven that two more victims of the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others were misidentified and buried in the wrong graves, Polish prosecutors said Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012, the number of misidentified victims has now grown to six and highlights flaws in the handling of the crash's aftermath in Russia. Such errors are deepening Polish distrust of historic foe Russia, while also fueling Polish conspiracy theories about the cause of the disaster.

Photo by AP

WARSAW — Poland is asking the European Union to pressure Moscow to return the wreckage of the plane that crashed in Russia in 2010, killing President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said Monday he asked EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to formally raise the issue with Russia next week at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels.

The
Polish military plane flown for state officials crashed near Smolensk,
Russia, an accident which Polish investigators have blamed on fog and
the error of the Polish pilots and Russian air traffic controllers.

Russia’s refusal to return the wreckage to date has angered Poles.

Sikorski
said he raised the issue last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov but got no information from him on when the wreckage might be
returned.