PM Hun Sen Shares Condolences to Polish President’s death

Samdech Techo PM Hun Sen Shares Condolences to Polish President’s death

Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen, the head of the Royal Government of Cambodia on April 10 send a letter to share the condolences with Polish Prime Minister for the death of Polish president Lech Kaczynski and first Lady, and other top government in plane crash on that day in western part of Russia.

“I am extremely shocked and saddened to receive news that His Excellency President Lech Kaczynski and first Lady, along with many other Polish dignities were killed in a plane crash in Western Russian on April 10,” Samdech Techo Hun Sen said in a letter sent to Polish Prime Minister on Saturday.
“On this very sad moment, on behalf of the Royal Government and people of Cambodian, allowed me to convey to Your Excellency and through you to the Government and people of Poland as we as the bereaved families,” he said in the letter.
“My deepest sympathy and profound condolences for such a huge loss in this most unfortunate and tragic accident,” the letter said. Cambodia and Poland are old friends and they have committed continuing the bilateral ties for serving mutual benefits for the two people and the two countries. In Phnom Penh, it has a street naming for Poland: Poland street in 7 Maraka distirct in Phnom Penh downtown as symbol relation of the two countries.
Foreign media reported that Poles were in deep mourns on Sunday after the President and many of the country's ruling elite were killed in a plane crash. A Russian made Tupolev plane plummeted into thick fog near western Russia, Smolensk, on Saturday and killed all 97 people on board including eight crews.
Tens of thousands of mourners thronged the streets of Polish capital, where avenue in front of Kaczynski's residential palace covered with sea of flowers and candles as many sang hymns and prayed. The President had planned to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish officers by Soviet forces during the World War II. The Polish delegation was flying in from Warsaw to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles by Soviet forces during WWII.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk quoted as saying by the media that the crash was the most tragic event of the country's post-World War II history. According to report,
Mr Kaczynski himself had suffered scares while using the plane in late 2008, when problems with the aircraft's steering mechanism delayed his departure from Mongolia.
"Any flight brings with it a certain risk, but a very serious risk attaches to the responsibilities of a president, because it is necessary to fly constantly," he was quoted as saying at the time. The president was flying in a Tupolev 154, a Soviet-designed plane that was more than 20 years old. Polish officials said that 89 people had been scheduled to fly in the delegation to the Katyn commemoration, but one person missed the flight. The BBC reported that Mr Putin visited the crash site, after saying he would personally oversee the investigation into the crash. "Everything must be done to establish the reasons for this tragedy in the shortest possible time," he said. He was to meet his Polish counterpart, Mr Tusk, in Smolensk. Report from source of TVP1, Warsaw in Poland said on board including President Lech Kaczynski and wife Maria and other politicians like Wladyslaw Stasiak chief of the president's chancellery; Aleksander Szczyglo chief of the National Security Office; Slawomir Skrzypek National Bank of Poland chairman; Jerzy Szmajdzinski deputy speaker of the lower house; Andrzej Kremer Foreign Ministry's undersecretary of state; Stanislaw Komorowski deputy minister of national defense; Przemyslaw Gosiewski Law and Justice party deputy chair; and Military chief, Franciszek Gagor chief of the General Staff and cultural figures: Andrzej Przewoznik head of Poland's Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites; Tomasz Merta chief historical conservator.

According to his biography, polish president Lech Kaczynski, who was born in 1949, had followed his brother into the anti-government movement in the late 1970s and served as an adviser to the strike committee at the Gdansk shipyard during the August 1980 Solidarity-led protests.
But the brothers found themselves outside mainstream politics in the early 1990s after falling out with President Walesa. The relationship between the one-time allies in the fight against Communism soured further in recent years. In 2009, Mr Walesa sued President Kaczynski for alleging that he had actually spied for the Communist secret service in the 1970s.
In the wake of the 2005 election, Poland had two Kaczynskis holding the reins of power - Lech as president and, from 2006, Jaroslaw as prime minister.
Since 2007, however, President Kaczynski had to work with Donald Tusk, who was his defeated rival in the presidential poll two years earlier.
He asked Mr Tusk to form a government after the victory of his centre-right Civic Platform in elections in October 2007.
Under the Polish constitution, the president has fewer powers than the prime minister, but has a significant say in foreign policy. ###