Chancellor Merkel pays "solo" state visit to Poland

Her visit was extraordinary, in that she was not accompanied by the usual entourage of diplomats and advisors, but only by her husband. The most important part of her visit was a lecture she gave at Warsaw University, during which she said that without "Solidarity" she would not have been able to become Chancellor. She was greeted at the airport by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and then held a 30-minute meeting with him. A key moment of the visit was the time she spent with President Lech Kaczynski and his wife in their residence in Jurata. The President said that he was very happy about the visit as it gave him to have a face-to-face talk with Merkel. The media in Germany are closely observing the visit. Some claim it could mark a breakthrough in Polish-German relations which recently have been cool. Though, as Pawel Zalewski, from ruling Law and Justice said, it is too early for such a statement yet. (Rzeczpospolita, March 17-18, p. A1) M.M.