V4 summit cancelled after "intervention" by Polish PM - PAP source
A summit of the Visegrad Group scheduled to take place on Monday and Tuesday in Jerusalem was cancelled following an intervention by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, PAP has learned from a source close to the government.
The heads of government of the Visegrad Group (V4, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) decided that the summit will take place after the parliamentary elections in Israel.
On Monday morning, PM Morawiecki announced the withdrawal of the Polish delegation from the V4 summit in Israel. The decision was a result of a statement on Sunday by acting Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, referring to words ascribed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he mentioned that Poles had collaborated with Nazi Germans during the Second World War.
"Our prime minister expressed himself clearly," Katz said. "I am a son of Holocaust survivors (...) The memory of the Holocaust is something we cannot compromise about, it is something clear and we won’t forget or forgive. Poles collaborated with the Nazis, and as (Israeli's former prime minister - PAP) Yitzhak Shamir, whose father was murdered by Poles, said, they suckle anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk."
Following Katz's remarks, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Israeli Ambassador to Poland Anna Azari on Monday.
According to information from PAP, at the initiative of Mateusz Morawiecki, the V4 heads of government cancelled the Jerusalem summit in a gesture of solidarity with Poland. The V4 politicians will be in Jerusalem on Monday, but will only hold bilateral meetings with representatives of the Israeli government.
In addition, according to PAP information, the V4 leaders have decided the Jerusalem summit will take place only after parliamentary elections in Israel.
On Monday afternoon, Mateusz Morawiecki said: "I have been warning them (other V4 countries - PAP) that there is an election campaign in Israel, ahead of the elections scheduled for early April. That is this factor that raises the temperature of the political dispute, so there is a risk that our friends from the Visegrad Group will be attacked, will be insulted, just as Israel's foreign minister, Mr. Katz, in his racist statement, tries to offend Poles by falsifying history." (PAP)
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