NEW ERA IN UKRAINIAN-POLISH RELATIONS.

Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Alexander Kwasniewski signed in Kiev yesterday a statement on accord and unity, also referred to as a declaration of historic reconciliation. Signed symbolically in front of a student audience, the statement cites some "moving examples of mutual aid and cooperation in the two peoples’ history," but dwells especially on overcoming the legacy of conflict. It mentions the "tragic pages of that record," from the military conflicts in the 17th and 18th centuries to the "anti-Ukrainian policy of the Polish authorities in the 1920s and 1930s," the Ukrainian-perpetrated massacres of Poles in Volhynia during World War II, the mass deportation of Ukrainians from eastern Poland in the post-war "Wisla action," and the persecution of the Polish population in Soviet Ukraine. Blaming that history of conflict on both foreign and internal factors, the document announces the determination of both sides to "turn the page" and "live together in a new Europe, free from prejudice and mistrust." The two presidents "take under their personal supervision the promotion of Ukrainian-Polish accord and unity," and appeal particularly to the young generations to develop those relations. Youth friendship centers and cultural houses are to be opened by each side on the other’s territory, Kuchma and Kwasniewski told a joint news conference. (Interfax-Ukraine, Ukrinform, May 21)

Region-Wide Consequences.