Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President, Polish colleagues,

This visit is indeed an important milestone in the history of Russian-Polish relations. Sadly, our relations had worsened, but now we have a real chance to breathe new life into them, or as you said, Mr President, to open a new chapter in our relations.

I saw the interview that you gave the Russian media. You said there that our relations need a dose of normalcy, need to become something commonplace and ordinary. I completely agree. Our relations should not be anything extraordinary, extravagant, and filled with difficulties in understanding each other. We need to normalise our relations, and we have all the conditions for doing this today, as we just discussed in our one-on-one meeting. 

We need to take an honest look at our history, a history which unites our countries, and which also has its share of tragic pages. We need to settle the most difficult and complex moments, but this is something we must do through mutual consultation and with full attention and consideration for each other. 

We agreed to continue work on the Katyn case too, and to take an attentive look at other complex pages in our history. This is our duty. I think that by doing this we will also lay a good foundation for future politicians.

We need to move forward not only on complex political issues but also work on economic matters too and intensify our economic cooperation. Our bilateral trade has improved lately, but there is still much to do, all the more so as our countries are not carrying out big joint projects at present. We talked about the need to help small and medium-sized business, however. I think our intergovernmental commission will work on this, and this will make a good contribution to developing our contacts.

We are resolute in our desire to conduct the investigation currently underway into the circumstances of the tragedy in Smolensk to its full conclusion. This is a truly tragic event, and we need to do everything possible to clarify to the fullest exactly what happened, so as not to leave doubts and questions in anyone’s minds. We therefore agreed to continue this work under your patronage, and I think this is very useful.

Today’s work, today’s visit by the Russian President and the accompanying delegation will see us sign a number of agreements. I think these are important agreements that will activate our ties. We are fully set on doing everything needed to achieve this. Thank you.