Lech Walesa refuses meeting with Barack Obama 

Vineri, 27 mai 2011, 18:41 English | Regional Europe

Lech Walesa, former leader of the Solidarity union, former President of Poland and winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1983 declared on Friday that he will not accept the invitation to meet with President Barack Obama, AFP reads. Walesa was due to meet the US President on Saturday.  

It is tough to tell journalists what you would want to tell the President of a super power but this time I will not tell him, I will not meet him, the meeting does not suit me, Walesa said for Polish television TVP. Obama will arrive in Poland on Friday after the G8 meeting in France. 

Walesa was due to meet Obama together with other key politicians from Poland’s transition period from Communism to democracy. According to sources close to Walesa, he was expecting a personal invitation from Obama who was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009. Walesa’s decision to not meet Obama follows the decision of Romanian, Serbian and Slovakian presidents to boycott the invitation of the Polish chief of state to attend the Central European Summit.