June 23, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 18, 1429

BREST (Belarus), June 22: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in remarks aimed at some former Soviet republics, condemned on Sunday what he described as attempts to rewrite wartime history.

In a joint declaration marking the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union 67 years ago, Medvedev and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko denounced a “politicised approach to history”.

No countries were named, but Ukraine and the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have increasingly challenged Moscow’s interpretation of history, saying that their nationals suffered from both Soviet and Nazi oppression.

Medvedev and Lukashenko said their countries “strongly condemn any attempt at rewriting history and revision of the results of the World War Two.”

“A selective, politicised approach to history should be set against honest, scientific debate,” the two leaders said in the Belarussian town of Brest, where Nazi forces first crossed the Soviet border on June 22, 1941.

“Only on this basis can Europe draw the lessons of history and avoid a tragic repetition of the errors of the past.”—Reuters