Czech
Today. April 15, 2001
PRAGUE, Apr 15, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) President Vaclav Havel
believes that Czech diplomats' unfair behavior in the preparation of a Czech
draft of the UN anti-Cuban resolution is the cause for the cooling of relations
between the Czech Republic and the United States, the dailies Mlada fronta Dnes
and Pravo say today.
They quote Havel as telling journalists on Friday that the problem is not
that the Czech Foreign Ministry has a different view on the U.S. economic
sanctions against Cuba but that Czech diplomats promise something during talks
with American officials which they then do not fulfil.
Pravo says that the tension in relations with the USA has already eased. "We
promise something and immediately after this we fail to fulfil this. We sign
something secretly at night and do not give it to our partner to read. It is
impossible to fully trust us. We lie and this is not good and slightly
undermines confidence in us. It is nothing bad in the eyes of the United States
to behave honestly and say what we think," the papers quote Havel as
saying.
Havel did not hide his disappointment at U.S. President George W. Bush's
decision to withdraw from the 1997 Kyoto treaty on limiting carbon dioxide
emissions, which aims at fighting global warming. As an opponent of death
sentence Havel also condemned showing the execution in the U.S. on the Internet.
Havel said, however, that it seemed that the tension in relations between the
Czech Republic and the USA had eased, Pravo says. "The main reason of a
lack of credibility was the method of work," Havel said, adding that the
formulation of the resolution on Cuba acceptable to various countries had been
found and that "there were no longer any disputes between Czech leading
officials over the formulation."
Foreign Minister Jan Kavan gave the text of the latest version of the draft
resolution to Chamber of Deputies foreign committee members on Friday. Kavan
also told them that the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, which has
been holding a meeting in Geneva since mid-March, is to take a vote on the
resolution on April 18. According to unconfirmed information obtained by CTK,
the latest proposal does not contain criticism of the U.S. economic sanctions
against Cuba but only a general statement on the importance of the economic
development of Cuba.
At the beginning of April presidential spokesman Ladislav Spacek told CTK
that there was only one disputed question between Havel and Kavan and that was
the draft anti-Cuban resolution. "Given that both the president and the
foreign minister have decisive powers in foreign policy their cooperation should
be absolutely close and very well coordinated," Spacek said, explaining why
Petr Burianek from the Presidential Office is attending the Geneva meeting.
((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)
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