(dpa) - Polish President Lech Kaczynski plans to lobby German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Ukraine's prospects for joining NATO, Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported Wednesday.
Kaczynski hopes to persuade Berlin to drop its objection to Ukraine's joining the so-called NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), the newspaper reported, citing sources at the Polish Foreign Ministry.
The report said that Kaczynski was also weighing up the possibility of three-party talks including Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko.
The newspaper said the idea of the summit had been rejected after a speech made by Kaczynski last week on television in which he warned about Germans expelled from Poland after World War II making claims on property.
The speech featured images of Merkel with the head of the German League of Expellees, Erika Steinbach.
The league's now approved plans to open a centre recalling the expulsion of millions of Germans from Central Europe after the war have sparked protests in Poland and the Czech Republic which complain they downplay Germany's role as aggressor.
Berlin did not officially comment on the speech, but reacted negatively to it, the newspaper reported.
The Presidential Office in Warsaw neither denied or confirmed the Gazeta Wyborcza report.
Warsaw is Kiev's strongest ally in its attempts to join NATO and the European Union.
NATO ministers will discuss expansion at a summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest from April 2-4.
France and Germany are currently opposed to cooperating too rapidly and closely with Ukraine and Georgia.