Speaker of parliament Radoslaw Sikorski survived a no confidence vote on Friday after claiming President Putin had proposed dividing Ukraine between Poland and Russia in 2008.
240 MPs voted against the motion, which had been brought against the government by chief opposition party Law and Justice, while 146 were for, and 48 abstained.
Sikorski, who served as foreign minister from November 2007 to September 2014 as a member of chief coalition partner Civic Platform, sparked a diplomatic row in October with his comments regarding Putin.
He told US news source Politico that during a one on one 2008 meeting between the then prime minister of Poland Donald Tusk and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president had suggested carving up Ukraine.
The Kremlin flatly denied that such comments were made, and Tusk himself stated that Putin had never made such a proposal.
In a parliamentary debate preceding the vote of no confidence, Law and Justice MP Krzysztof Szczerski declared that “it is time to end the failed experiment with Sikorski.”
However, Sikorski survived by a comfortable majority in Friday's vote, aided by junior coalition partner the Polish Peasants' Party. (nh)
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Ewa Malcher
