ARRESTED POLES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 123, 26 May 1945, Page 9

ARRESTED POLES

DENIAL, OF STALIN'S STATEMENT

In connection with Marshal Stalin's reply of May 18 to the Moscow correspondent of the London •'Times, denying that the 16 arrested Polish leaders had been invited for the purpose of* negotiations with the Russian authorities, the Polish Consul-General in New Zealand has received from London Hie following official statement:— , , ~ . ~ "There can be no doubt that the airested Polish leaders were invited by the Soviet authorities for negotiations. The Polish Government possesses the text of a letter in which Coloneli Pimenov of the NKVD (th£ Russian secret police) invited Vice-Premier Jan Jankowski and Major-General Leopold Okulicki. former commander-in-chiet of the dissolved Home ■.Army, for political conversations. Before VicePremier Janowski left for these con-1 versations he examined the authenticity of the letter and received confirmation that Pimenov had extended j an invitation on behalf of ColonelGeneral Ivanov. who described him-! self as the representative of the Command of the First White Russian Front Colonel Pimenov described the object of the conversations as a clarification of the atmosphere and a disclosure o± the democratic Polish parties in order that they might take part in the gen-j eral current of democratic forces otj independent Poland. . i "On March 27 and 28 the VicePremier of the Polish Government, three Minister, the chairman of the Council of National Unity, the former commander-in-chief of the dissolved Home Army, also representatives of the principal political parties and an interpreter arrived at an. appointed place for political conversations with Colonel-General Ivanov, having on the one hand an assurance of thenpersonal safety and on the other a definite promise that on March 29 representatives of the Polish resistance movement, numbering twelve, should be given a plane to go to London for consultation with the polish Government and Polish political circles. After consultations, the delegates were to return to Poland for further conversations. In the course of introductory conversations which were held between March 17 and 27, Vice-Premier Jankowski asked Colonel-General Pimenov where the boundary line between the competence of the Lublin Committee on the one hand and the Red Army on the other lay. He received a replythat the Lublin Committee must comply with the directions it received from the command of the First White Russian Front and these directions were binding. "Eventually a collection of documents comprehensively illustrating the problem of the disclosure of the Polish leaders will be published, and, will contain reports of conversations held before their arrest."