Poland to Resume Border Traffic With Kaliningrad if Security Conditions Met

Poland will resume visa-free border traffic with the Russian border exclave of Kaliningrad, when the necessary security conditions are met, Adviser for Foreign Affairs in the Presidential Office Krzysztof Szczerski said on Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The temporary border controls were introduced in Poland due to the NATO summit that took place in Warsaw on July 8-9 and World Youth Day, an international Catholic event hosted by Poland in late July. Earlier in August, Poland decided to leave in place the restrictions in respect of Russia's westernmost Kaliningrad region, citing security reasons.

"The conditions, related to Poland's security, have resulted in a decision to suspend the local border traffic with the Kaliningrad region being left in place…The government preserved this decision on the basis of assumptions which it considered important….As we see it, when the situation is re-evaluated and there are no these [security] assumptions, the situation will change," Szczerski was quoted by the Gazeta Prawna newspaper as saying.

Earlier in the day, Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak voiced a similar position, saying that the common movement to Russia's Kaliningrad would be resumed as soon as "the causes that related to the security of the Polish state disappear."

The Russia-Poland agreement on local border traffic came into force in July 2012. The agreement applies to the entire Kaliningrad region, while Poland's Warmia and Mazury and Pomerania are partly involved. As the residents of this territories register for the local border traffic, they are allowed multiple entries, exits and stays on the territory of another country in accordance with the prescribed conditions.