Poland-Ukraine graves row looms over Kiev's EU bid

WARSAW

Just months after Poland and Ukraine defused tensions over Kiev's grain exports and border blockages, another diplomatic spat is straining ties between the otherwise staunch allies.

It is centered around a decades-long dispute over the Volyn killings during World War II that prompted Warsaw to harden its tone, threatening to hamper Kiev's bid for EU membership.

The 1943-1945 Volyn massacre saw around 100,000 Polish civilians killed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), in what is now western Ukraine, according to Warsaw.

Poland says it amounted to genocide and has long campaigned for resuming the exhumation of the victims, suspended by Ukraine in 2017.

The row follows a prolonged spat over an embargo Poland imposed on Ukrainian grain imports and blockages at the border by disgruntled Polish truckers and farmers over what they said was "unfair competition" from Ukraine.

Regardless of the disputes, Warsaw has said its military and humanitarian support for Ukraine will not waver.

But as Poland readies for its rotating European Union presidency in January, the row has spiked tensions and stoked fears in Ukraine that Warsaw could use the dispute as leverage.

A meeting between Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev in mid-September seemed to confirm the rumored crisis.

The talks were described as difficult and tense by the media in both countries, with the two capitals trading blame.

Ukrainian officials, quoted anonymously by the EuroPravda website, accused Sikorski of having "deliberately provoked" Zelensky by stating that "Ukraine should not expect to join the EU quickly," and that it was "a matter of at least 10 years."

"His key message was: 'Don't count on joining the EU quickly, you will have to go through all the procedures,’" said a source at the Ukrainian president's office.

Polish website Onet meanwhile cited its own sources in Warsaw claiming the Ukrainian president accused Poland of no longer giving sufficient support.

Zelensky reportedly opposed the Volyn exhumations and urged the simultaneous opening of all negotiating chapters with the EU on Ukraine's future membership in the bloc, demands Warsaw deemed "unrealistic."

In August, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that until the issue of exhumations was resolved, Ukraine "will not be a member of the European Union."

A flurry of statements ensued.

"We will not give way on this issue because we believe that, first, it's not a political issue, it should not be the subject of bargaining, but it is simply a Christian duty," Sikorski said last week.

According to experts, such statements are heavily influenced by Polish domestic politics, with all parties, particularly the nationalist opposition, calling for the resumption of exhumations.

"It's not something Poland can ignore... It's absolutely not a subject that any government can neglect, especially before an election," Marcin Zaborowski, an analyst with the Globsec think tank, told AFP.

Poland will next year hold an election to choose a successor to conservative president Andrzej Duda, a close ally of the former nationalist government.