(Reuters) - Russian and Polish investigators struggled on Monday to identify the remains of nearly 100 people killed in a weekend plane crash in which Poland's president and many other top officials perished.
Kaczynski's aging Polish government Tupolev plane crashed in thick fog near Smolensk airport in western Russia on Saturday, reportedly after the pilot ignored traffic controllers' advice not to land.
While the deaths of military leaders and leading opposition figures are a huge blow to the political and military elite, the crash poses no threat to political and economic stability in Poland, a country of 38 million people firmly anchored in the European Union and the U.S.-led NATO alliance. In Poland, the government, not the president, decide
In Poland, the government, not the president, decides policy, though the head of state can veto laws. From the government, only three deputy ministers were on the plane.
Financial markets largely shrugged off the crash on Monday, with the zloty currency and stocks flat or slightly firmer. They were awaiting a decision on who would replace Slawomir Skrzypek, the governor of the Polish central bank who was also killed.
Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski said on Monday he would act quickly to name a new governor. The bank's Monetary Policy Council was also due to meet at 5 a.m. ET to discuss the situation.
IDENTIFYING THE DEAD
In Moscow, Russia's health minister Tatyana Golikova said the process of identifying all the bodies would take two to three days.
Her Polish counterpart Ewa Kopacz, visiting Moscow, said: "It's not an easy procedure. In many cases it's only possible to identify the dead with the help of genetic expertise".
Kopacz also expressed gratitude to the Russian authorities for their professionalism and their collaborative approach.
The crash has also shocked Russia, Poland's historic foe and communist-era overlord, which declared Monday a day of mourning.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's decision to personally see off Kaczynski's coffin from Smolensk made a good impression on Poles.
Kaczynski and his entourage had been planning to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD secret police in the nearby Katyn forest.
Poland has declared a week of mourning. Kaczynski's coffin, greeted in silence by tens of thousands of people lining its route from Warsaw's military airport to the presidential palace on Sunday, will be available for public viewing from Tuesday.
"We will delay the funeral until his wife Maria's body has been identified and has returned to Poland. There is an agreement between the government and the President's chancellery on this," Jacek Sasin from the chancellery said on Monday.
PRIDE, QUESTIONS
Millions of mourners across staunchly Roman Catholic Poland packed into churches on Sunday to pray for the dead. Houses, shops and businesses were decorated with Polish flags.
"I am proud of how the nation reacted, it is something to be proud of, but we also have to be responsible and prudent," said Lech Walesa, Poland's former president and onetime leader of the Solidarity movement that overthrew communism in 1989.
"We have to ask ourselves why this happened. It's not about arguing or placing blame on anyone, but we have to draw conclusions, lessons for the future," Walesa told Polish TV.
Kaczynski, a combative nationalist known for his distrust of both the EU and of Russia, belonged to Solidarity in the 1980s but later quarreled with Walesa.
Kaczynski and his identical twin brother Jaroslaw, a former prime minister, had led opposition to Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-market reform government and its efforts to take Poland into the euro as soon as possible.
Komorowski has said he will set the date of a presidential election which had been due in October after holding talks with Poland's political parties. Under the constitution the election must now be held by late June.
Komorowski, 58, is the presidential candidate of Tusk's ruling Civic Platform (PO). Opinion polls suggest he would have defeated Kaczynski in the election.
Additional reporting by Conor Sweeney in Moscow, Chris Borowski in Warsaw; Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by Kevin Liffey
Reuters
