President Iohannis, Polish counterpart Duda open exhibition 'A Centennial of the Alliance. Romanian-Polish Diplomacy 1918-1939'

President Klaus Iohannis and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda officially opened on Thursday evening the exhibition "A Centennial of the Alliance. Romanian-Polish Diplomacy 1918-1939", organized at the seat of the Warsaw Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 

"This exhibition introduces an arch over time: 1918-2018, a period which, as we can see from the documents and photographs exhibited, was extremely intense from a political and diplomatic viewpoints. We can thus compare the intensity of the bilateral contacts of the inter-war period with that of today, which is at least at the same level. Romania and Poland are connected through an old and lasting friendship that goes deeper into history. Geographical proximity and sharing the same geopolitical context helped us to understand each other, to be closer, to fight the empires that shared and divided Europe. We have a common heritage of which we are proud, the same regional, European and global strategic interests, we are close and trustworthy partners," said Iohannis. 

He added that this year marks the celebration of a centennial from the Great Union of Romania and the regaining of the Independence of Poland. 

"I believe that, beyond the history that brings us closer, we need to look at this relationship firstly through what we can do together in the future. For this, Romania and Poland need to further their commitment to move forward on the path freely chosen almost three decades ago, to defend and promote this system of values to which we belong and to strengthen the valuable Strategic Partnership that we have," said Iohannis. 

In his turn, President Duda said the exhibition is a very good landmark in terms of the nature and richness of the relations between Poland and Romania. 

The exhibition, dedicated to the common Romanian-Polish history between 1919-1936, includes over one hundred images and diplomatic documents of archive, among which: the visit of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie to Warsaw and that of First Marshal of Poland Jozef Pilsudski to Bucharest and Sinaia, and news articles regarding these moments, Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski's letter through which he requested Romanian Prime Minister Ion I. C. Bratianu to recognise the Polish state (December 1918), the Convention on Defensive Alliance (1921) and the Romanian-Polish Guarantee Treaty (1926). 

Put together by the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) in Warsaw, in collaboration with Romania's Embassy, the exhibition is hosted by the Romanian-Polish Chamber of Commerce and can be visited by June 24.