Polish veterans who fought to help Britain defeat Nazism backed their Prime Minister's call last night for Britain to apologise for failing to assist the Warsaw Uprising during the Second World War.

As politicians and veterans gathered in Warsaw to mark today's 60th anniversary of the uprising by the Polish Resistance against German occupation, a diplomatic row was simmering after the British government admitted it could have done more but stopped short of an apology.

Over nine weeks in 1944, around 200,000 Poles were slaughtered by the Nazis as Soviet troops, camped on the other side of the River Vistula, held back from intervention. Soviet leader Josef Stalin ordered the Red Army to stay out of the fighting because he did not want the Resistance to lay the foundations of an independent post-war Poland.

But many Poles feel that Britain too bears responsibility for the failure of the uprising because Churchill refused to airlift in Polish troops who had taken refuge in the UK and wanted to join their countrymen's struggle.

Marek Belka, the Polish Prime Minister, said yesterday that Britain and other wartime allies should now acknowledge the history of the uprising and express regret for their failure to act.

'Let's start with the recognition, and then we can follow with some sort of apology,' he told Radio 4's Today programme. 'I don't know if "apology" is the right word, but we should put the history straight.

'Obviously this would be a very good thing, a very good gesture that would be appreciated not only by the soldiers of the Warsaw Uprising - the very few that are still alive - but also by the Polish people. I don't know whether people in Britain or anywhere else realise how important a symbol the Warsaw Uprising is for everyone in Poland.'

Belka's plea was supported by Polish war heroes including Henri Weber, who landed in Normandy shortly after D-Day to fight for the allies. 'If the Germans can apologise so can the British,' said the 85-year-old, now living near Malvern, Worcestershire. 'They couldn't have done more physically but they could have publicly condemned the Russian attitude.'

Michael Wartalski, 83, another veteran of the First Polish Armoured Division now living in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, added: 'Britain should, to some extent, apologise. There was sourness after the war when the British and Americans recognised the government in Warsaw. That was a slap in the face for the government in exile, which had orchestrated the uprising.'

But Europe minister Denis MacShane, whose own father was among the Polish commandos unable to fly to the aid of the Resistance, said: 'I am never quite sure about governments apologising and saying sorry.'

MacShane felt it was right that more recognition should be given to the uprising, which he described as 'the greatest act of resistance of any occupied country'.

Historian Norman Davies, author Rising '44: the battle for Warsaw , said yesterday: 'There is no doubt the British could have done more in all sorts of ways. Poland was our first ally. The British knew perfectly well from 1942 that the Soviet Union was going to occupy the territory. There were years to prepare the ground for that eventuality.

'A lot could have been done to talk to the Soviets about the Polish problem. We don't know how Stalin would have reacted, but nobody tried. The shortcomings of British diplomacy are obvious when you look at it. To formally apologise is a step too far, but an expression of regret would be different.'

Today's commemorations in Warsaw will be attended by John Prescott, the deputy Prime Minister, US secretary of state Colin Powell and, in what MacShane described as 'a remarkable act of reconciliation', the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.