WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s foreign ministry has summoned Israel’s ambassador for Monday, a Polish deputy minister said on Friday, after the diplomat criticised the government for not allowing student trips from Israel to visit Holocaust memorial sites in Poland.
In July, Poland and Israel vowed to improve relations that had deteriorated after Warsaw introduced a law last year limiting the ability of Jews to recover World War Two properties, saying they would mutually restore ambassadors.
Holocaust education trips for Israeli students to Poland had been suspended earlier this year over the fact that armed guards accompanied the students on the trips, a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed to Reuters.
“I regret that Ambassador @YacovLivne has chosen to communicate with @MSZ_RP through the media and public speeches – in addition misleading the public as to why the trips are not taking place,” Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski tweeted on Friday.
“To clarify the situation, he will be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.”
Livne criticised the Polish government for not allowing the student trips earlier this week during a commemoration of an uprising at Nazi extermination camp Sobibor, according to Polish media reports.
Jablonski added that Poland’s position regarding the trips had not changed since August.
“We are ready to welcome (Israeli) groups even from tomorrow. Security rules should be the same as in other similar countries, i.e. no armed protection. Poland should be treated according to the same standard,” Jablonski tweeted.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska; Editing Mark Potter)
