- By Antoinette Radford
- BBC News
Image supply, Tomasz Gzell/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
One of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, Poland, has introduced it is going to now not provide weapons to the nation as a diplomatic dispute over grain escalates.
The nation’s prime minister stated it could as an alternative deal with arming itself with extra fashionable weapons.
The transfer comes as tensions between the 2 nations rise.
On Tuesday, Poland summoned Ukraine’s ambassador over feedback made by President Volodymyr Zelensky on the UN.
He stated some nations had feigned solidarity with Ukraine, which Warsaw denounced as “unjustified concerning Poland, which has supported Ukraine since the first days of the war”.
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, introduced the choice to now not provide Ukraine with weapons in a televised handle on Wednesday after a day of quickly escalating tensions between the 2 nations over grain imports.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Mr Morawiecki stated.
The grain dispute started after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine all however closed the principle Black Sea delivery lanes and compelled Ukraine to discover various overland routes.
That in flip led to massive portions of grain ending up in central Europe.
Consequently, the European Union quickly banned imports of grain into 5 nations; Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to shield native farmers, who feared Ukrainian grain was driving down the costs regionally.
The ban ended on 15 September and the EU selected not to renew it, however Hungary, Slovakia and Poland determined to carry on implementing it.
The European Commission has repeatedly acknowledged that it isn’t up to particular person EU members to make commerce coverage for the bloc.
Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko stated that “it is crucially important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods”.
But Poland stated they might hold the ban in place, and a “complaint before the WTO doesn’t impress us”.
Mr Morawiecki stated they might enhance the variety of banned merchandise from Kyiv if Ukraine escalates the grain dispute. Poland’s overseas ministry added that “putting pressure on Poland in multilateral forums or sending complaints to international courts are not appropriate methods to resolve differences between our countries”.
Despite the ban, the three nations stated they might nonetheless enable grain to be transported by way of them to different markets.
Kyiv referred to as for Poland to “leave emotion aside” after their ambassador was summoned and as an alternative urged the events ought to undertake a constructive strategy to resolving the dispute.
The French Foreign Minister, Catherina Colonna stated on Wednesday an EU research revealed Ukrainian grain imports wouldn’t cripple European farmers, and described the tensions as “regrettable”.
