Russia Must Explain

From an AFP report of February 14, 2005:

WARSAW, Feb 14 (AFP) - Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis on Monday urged Moscow to explain its interpretation of key events during World War II which impacted negatively on the Baltic states, to allow Latvia and Russia to "have a common vision" of history.

"We would like to achieve a common understanding with Russia about the history of the Second World War, and learn exactly how Moscow interprets the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact," Kalvitis said during a visit to Poland at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Marek Belka.

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact in 1939, leaving Hitler free to invade Poland and Stalin to enter Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. They agreed to split Poland between them, with Germany occupying the west of the country and Soviet Russia the east.

Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944 and reincorporated the three countries into the Soviet Union.

Latvia and Poland "have a common understanding of the history of the war. We share an understanding of the influence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact on Baltic countries, which, of course, was negative," Kalvitis said.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Poland's Aleksander Kwasniewski would go to Moscow to attend ceremonies on May 9 to mark the victory of the Soviet Red Army over Nazi Germany, said Belka.

"But that does not mean that our opinion about the Yalta Treaty or the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact has changed," he said.

He also played down a statement made at the weekend by the Russian foreign ministry, condemning "attempts by Poland and other countries to corrupt the results of the Yalta conference".

In February 1945, the Soviet Union, Britain and United States confirmed, among other issues, after talks in Yalta in the Crimea, that eastern Poland was to remain part of the Soviet Union after Nazi Germany had been routed. The foreign ministry in Moscow said that Poland has pointedly kept quiet about the fact that it gained territory in the west and north at the expense of Germany under the terms of the Yalta accord, and that the country's gains far outstripped its losses. "It would be highly inappropriate to lend too much importance to the bizarre statements made by Russia, such as those concerning Yalta," said Belka.