Poland ready to start talks with Israel over anti-defamation law
Poland is ready to start talks with Israel as soon as possible as regards the new anti-defamation law, the Polish PM's chief aide Michal Dworczyk said on Monday.
Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu held a telephone conversation on Sunday.
During the talk, PM Netanyahu "declared that teams on political and historical dialogue, set up both in Poland and Israel, will be launched," Michal Dworczyk reported.
So far Israel has not responded to "a proposal for a meeting as issued by the Polish side," Dworczyk added.
"We have declared that - should that be Warsaw, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem - we are ready to start talks as soon as possible, at a day's notice, because dialogue is necessary." "Now we're waiting until the date and place are set through diplomatic channels," the minister added.
At the beginning of February, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into law a bill amending the law on the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) - The Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, the so-called anti-defamation bill.
President Duda decided to turn to the Constitutional Tribunal to examine whether freedom of speech is limited in an unauthorised manner by the provisions of the amended law.
The legislation proved controversial for Israel, the United States and Ukraine. Israel claims the penalties for defamation that the act envisages may restrict research on the Holocaust.
Under the new act, all those who publicly attribute, contrary to the facts, responsibility or co-responsibility for the Third Reich's crimes - or other crimes against humanity and peace, as well as war crimes - to the Polish nation or the Polish state can be punished with a fine or a prison term of up to three years. (PAP)
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