Polish FM spoke with Obama administration about Smolensk

Minster Witold Waszczykowski said that in December 2015 he presented Kerry with Poland’s proposal for the US to help in recovering the wreckage of the plane which crashed in Smolensk, western Russia, in 2010, killing all 96 people on board, including then-president Lech Kaczyński.

In an interview with the wPolityce website, Waszczykowski said that Obama's administration “did not raise the subject” with the Kremlin.

Waszczykowski will be travelling to the US next week, where he is expected to meet Rex Timmerman, Secretary of State under President Donald Trump.

“Next Wednesday I will inform Secretary Tillerson about the progress of the Polish investigation into the tragedy – that it is paralysed by the inability to recover the wreckage and black boxes,” Waszczykowski said.

He added that Poland’s “inability to cooperate with Russian prosecutors, the inability to interview the air traffic controllers who [were on duty during] the catastrophe,” have made it harder for Poland to find out exactly what happened in the final moments of the fateful flight.

A new commission to investigate the crash was set up by the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party which came to power in 2015.

The party is headed by Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of Lech Kaczyński.

PiS has long challenged an official report into the crash issued by the previous Polish government which cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport.

A Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles.

Despite repeated requests from Warsaw, Russia has refused to return the wreckage of the plane to Poland.

The commission recently said that the plane was probably destroyed by a mid-air explosion. (rg/vb)