Polish leader in appeal to Putin as muggings further sour relations

POLAND: Poland's president Alexander Kwasniewski has appealed to his Russian counterpart to take action over the beating of three Polish citizens in Moscow this week, in apparent revenge attacks for an assault on young Russians in Warsaw.

Two of the Poles work at their country's embassy in Moscow, close to where they were attacked, while the third is a journalist for a leading Polish paper.

"In my capacity as president of the Polish republic, I address an appeal to the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, calling on the Russian authorities to take strenuous measures to identify and punish the organisers and perpetrators of the assaults," Mr Kwasniewski said in a statement.

"These dangerous incidents in recent days are creating tensions in Polish-Russian relations and leading to a harmful escalation of hostility."

The beatings came after three teenage children of Russian diplomats were mugged in a Warsaw park, an incident that gained extensive media coverage in Russia amid a prolonged souring of its relations with Poland.

Warsaw police yesterday announced the arrest of the suspected muggers.

Mr Putin quickly denounced the muggings as an "unfriendly act" inspired by anti-Russian feelings that officials say are rife in Poland, which has taken an increasingly assertive diplomatic stance with its eastern neighbours since joining the EU last year.

Warsaw angered Moscow recently by supporting the "Orange Revolution" that sidelined Russia's allies in Ukraine; for backing opponents of Belarus's hardline president, Alexander Lukashenko; and for regularly denouncing Mr Putin's dirty war against Chechen rebels and his tightening of state control over media and the economy.

Sergei Kislyak, a Russian deputy foreign minister, expressed his "deep regret" over the attacks in Moscow and said he hoped they would not affect bilateral relations.

But that was before Moscow correspondent Pawel Reszka was attacked by a gang as he returned from work on the Rzeczpospolita newspaper, one of Poland's biggest. He was taken to hospital with head and chest injuries.

The attacks have stirred memories of the "eye-for-an-eye" tactics used by governments during Cold War diplomatic feuds, and prompted a commentator on Russia's NTV television to declare: "The score is tied at three-all."