Poland wants 'clear' explanation of alleged Netanyahu Holocaust remark

Poland said on Friday it wanted a clear explanation from Israel regarding reported comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implicating Poles in the Holocaust.

"We expect the Israeli side will clearly explain what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meant in the statement quoted by the Israeli media," Poland's deputy foreign minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek told reporters in Warsaw.

"We consider the current explanations regarding this matter unclear," he added, following talks with Israel's ambassador who had been summoned following uproar in Poland over the Israeli media reports.

Israeli Ambassador Anna Azari had earlier denied a Jerusalem Post report quoting Netanyahu as saying that "Poles cooperated with the Germans" in the Holocaust.

The Haaretz newspaper later also ran the story.

The controversy even threatened to undermine a summit due next week in Israel between Netanyahu and four central European counterparts.

Warsaw has long been at pains to point out that Poland, which was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, could not have and did not collaborate in the Holocaust although individual Poles may have done so.

"I was present during the prime minister's briefing and he didn't say that the Polish nation collaborated with the Nazis, he only said that no person was sued for speaking about those Poles who did cooperate with them," Azari said in a Friday statement sent to Polish authorities prior to her talks at the foreign ministry.

No official transcript of Netanyahu's remarks was published.

Prior to Azari's statement, Polish President Andrzej Duda had even suggested that the Visegrad Group summit of four central European EU member and Israel due there next week could be reconsidered.

A Duda spokesman later confirmed that the meeting would go ahead, adding that the controversy had resulted from "harmful media manipulation".

Azari also said that Netanyahu was "looking forward to meeting with (Polish) Prime Minister (Mateusz) Morawiecki next week".

"There are no new decisions regarding this meeting," Szynkowski vel Sek said following Friday's talks with Azari.

Netanyahu was in Warsaw this week for a two-day summit on the Middle East co-hosted by Poland and the United States and focused on isolating Iran while building Arab-Israeli ties.

The flair of controversy in Polish-Israeli ties comes after last year's row over a Polish law that made it illegal to accuse the Polish nation or state of complicity in Nazi German crimes.

After protests from Israel and the US, Poland amended the law to remove the possibility of fines or a prison sentence.

Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II and lost six million citizens including three million Jews.