Russia promises Poland to declassify Katyn files

"Investigating" the Murdered Polish Army Officers at Katyn:

Michael Johnston submits:Polish president Lech Kaczynski died Saturday morning when his plane crashed on landing outside the western Russian city of Smolensk. Kaczynski was on his was to memorial services at Katyn, the site of a massacre of more then 20,000 Poles by Soviet agents in the 1940s.

Poland on Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of a plane crash in Russia that killed president Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other high-profile Poles, amid bitter political divisions.At 8:41 am (0641 GMT), the exact time of the April 10, 2010 tragedy in Smolensk, western Russia, a visibly emotional President Bronislaw Komorowski paid silent tribute to his predecessor and the 95 other victims at a memorial in a Warsaw church.

A Russian-made TU-154 plane, carrying the Polish president, his wife and a score of other dignitaries including, the Central Bank governor, the chief of the general staff, members of parliament and government has crashed today near Smolensk in Russia, killing all passengers aboard.

Russia on Wednesday handed to Poland the final version of a report into the April air crash that killed Polish president Lech Kaczynski amid claims in Warsaw that Moscow's probe is riddled with errors."The final report has been forwarded by the chairman of the technical commission to the authorised representative of Poland via the Polish embassy in Russia," the Moscow-based aviation commission known by its acronym MAK said in a statement.It did not provide further details ahead of a news conference on the probe's findings scheduled to start at 0900 GMT.

The first round of Poland's presidential elections to elect a successor to Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash, will be held on June 20, the parliament's press service announced Wednesday."The president of the Diet (lower house of parliament) Bronislaw Komorowski has taken the decision to call elections for the president of the republic of Poland on June 20," it said in a statement.Under Polish law, a possible run-off second round would be held on July 4.

Poland's liberals held all the reins of power on Monday after their candidate Bronislaw Komorowski foiled conservative Jaroslaw Kaczynski's audacious bid to replace his late twin in a presidential election.Komorowski's victory means the Civic Platform controls both the government and the presidency, after a long power struggle.Ex-prime minister Kaczynski, chief of the opposition Law and Justice party, conceded defeat late Sunday as exit polls showed he had failed in his quest to succeed his identical twin, Lech, who died in a plane crash in April.