Lithuania, Poland destined to cooperate – Walesa

“We are destined to cooperate – this is how God created everything, we are neighbors and are destined to cooperate. Let’s make the cooperation pleasant,” Walesa told BNS on Friday after attending the Baltic and Black Seas Forum in Lithuania’s second city Kaunas.

After refusing to accept one of Lithuania’s most honorable state awards in 2011 due to what he said was unacceptable situation of Poles in Lithuania, Walesa said he wanted both countries to forget the old sores.

“My brief answer is that the third party wins where two fight. We have had too many arguments between us, and the third one always took advantage of this. Enough of the old politics and let us not let the third ones benefit from our mutual quarrels,” said the former Polish leader.

In his words, improvement of the relations between Lithuania and Poland will take time.

“Things will not change soon and instantly. The processes take place gradually, they require cooperation, trade, business development, and then the things can be tuned. I have already noticed that in any case Vilnius is close than Washington,” said Walesa.

Walesa is Poland’s politician and former trade union activist who created the public movement Solidarity in 1980, won the Nobel Prize for peace in 1983 and was Poland’s president between 1990 and 1995.