Belarusian–Polish commission to discuss Union of Poles on March 9

The first meeting of the Polish-Belarusian group of experts will take place next Tuesday, on March 9. The group is going to find a way to settle the conflict concerning the Union of Poles in Belarus, informs the head of the Chief council of the unofficial Union of Poles in Belarus Andrei Pachobut in his blog. Pachobut says that the Union of Poles hopes the organization will finally be able to exist in peace:

Pachobut: We hope that our activities will be legalized as a result of the work. It is essential that the property issue should be solved, Polish Houses should be returned to the Union of Poles so that civil and cultural activities could be organized there instead of commercial ones…

According to unconfirmed reports, the head of the Polish group will be the vice Foreign Minister Andrei Kremer and the head of the Belarusian group – the plenipotentiary on religious matters and nationalities Leanid Hulyaka. However, the plenipotentiary’s staff does not know anything about this commission. The head of the department for nationalities and legal activities Alyaksandr Sasnovich has remarked in an interview with ERB:

Sasnovich: Unfortunately, I do not have this information. It seems to me that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will deal with it (if at all) because these are international relations… To be precise, the relations are intergovernmental.