Arkadiusz Mularczyk made the announcement in an interview with public broadcaster Polish Radio on Tuesday.
The deputy foreign minister said: “Today an international scientific conference begins in Pruszków near Warsaw, which marks the symbolic beginning of work on the report on Poland's war losses caused by the Soviet Union. The report will be ready in two to three years’ time at the earliest.”
Mularczyk added that such a study of Poland’s war losses at the hands of the Soviet Union would be "an important part of Polish historical policy” and so “must be drawn up.”
He argued that the government had “a moral and legal duty towards future generations” to refer to the report in international relations.
The two-day conference, which began in Pruszków on Tuesday morning, was expected to focus on "the wealth of the Polish territories" annexed by the Soviet Union following the invasion on September 17, 1939, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Organised by the state-run War Losses Institute (ISW), the conference is designed to outline the condition of the Polish state on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, according to officials.
Warsaw demands WWII damages from Germany
In April, Poland’s government adopted a resolution “on the need to regulate, in Polish-German relations, the issue of reparations, compensation and redress” for the losses caused by the German invasion and subsequent occupation of Poland during World War II.
The Polish government said the document “confirms that the issue of compensation for the damage and harm caused by Germany during World War II has not been settled in the form of an international agreement between the Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany, and that such an agreement must be entered into.”
In September last year, the Polish government announced that the losses suffered by Poland at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II totalled PLN 6.22 trillion (EUR 1.3 trillion) and that it would demand compensation from Berlin.
In October, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau signed a formal note to the government in Berlin, demanding compensation for losses Poland sustained during the war.
According to the German government, "the issue of reparations and compensation for World War II losses remains closed” and Berlin "does not intend to enter into negotiations on the matter," officials have said.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, polskieradio24.pl
