Kiev hopes for compromise with Poland, border unblocking

MOSCOW. Feb 29 (Interfax) - Ukraine and Poland have arrived at a number of decisions on the constructive unblocking of the Ukrainian-Polish border with due account of the interests of Polish farmers in the course of negotiations with Polish Development and Technology Minister Krzysztof Hetman and Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski, Ukrainian Deputy Economy Minister, Trade Representative Taras Kachka said.

"Four hours of very busy negotiations. Managed to find a common language and are working on a constructive solution to unblock the border and take the interests of Polish and Ukrainian farmers into account. This is not easy but possible," Ukrainian media quoted Kachka's statement on a social network.

Kachka noted the importance of the approach proposed by Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal in a speech at the Polish-Ukrainian border for reaching an understanding.

"The border closure option was never mentioned during four hours of negotiations. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been quite clear: that would have been a very painful decision for our economies. It is too painful to suspend trade, which amounts to $11.7 billion per year (or more, according to Polish statistics), for even one day. Not to mention transit, which is vital to Ukraine," Kachka said.

He said he would not go into details but a constructive solution was quite possible.