Polish and Ukrainian foreign ministers on Tuesday hailed progress in resolving a historical dispute over the WWII Volyn killings, adding they were working towards exhuming the victims.
The decades-long spat over the Volyn massacre in modern-day Ukraine has led to frequent diplomatic tensions between neighbours and allies, with Warsaw long campaigning for Kyiv's greenlight on the exhumations.
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"We are currently working... on practical mechanisms for carrying out field search and exhumation work," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga told reporters after talks with his counterpart in Warsaw.
The Polish government estimates that around 100,000 Poles and 5,000 Ukrainians were killed between 1943 and 1945 in the regions of Rivne and Volyn, in what is now western Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, a state body, said last month it planned to authorise field research in 2025 into the mass violence in Rivne, a necessary step before bodies are dug out.
"Every family has the right to honour the memory of their ancestors with dignity," Sybiga said. "We are on the right track. I believe that we have progress".
His Polish counterpart confirmed the promising developments.
"Ukraine confirms that there are no obstacles to the conduct of search and exhumation works on the territory of Ukraine," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.
According to Polish media, work on exhumations had been suspended since 2017, when tensions briefly surged between the two neighbours.
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Several prominent Polish officials in recent months have stated that Ukraine would not join the European Union until the eight-decade-old dispute is settled.
Poland is currently gearing up to assume the rotating European Union presidency from January.
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