Topolanek told journalists his opinion on the conflict differs from Klaus's. Topolanek said Georgia reacted to a beforehand prepared provocation by Moscow. Klaus, for his part, says Georgia is mainly to be blamed for the conflict. The government will discuss the situation in the Caucasus on Wednesday. Topolanek said Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and the whole government are responsible for Czech foreign policy. "The constitution does not speak about the president's responsibility.
In this sense I rather consider it [Klaus's Seven Czechs leave Georgia, no Czech in area of fighting-official ...
Georgia detains 14 Russian troops ... opinion] a complication in relation to other countries," Topolanek said. He repeated the Russian troops's "peacekeeping role" in the Caucasus is similar to that when the Warsaw Pact troops occupied then Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Klaus has, however, rejected this comparison. Topolanek said he thinks Russia's action was also encouraged by that Georgia was not invited to join NATO at the summit in Bucharest in April. "(Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin showed who rules Russia today," Topolanek. Topolanek said multinational peacekeeping forces in which the Czech Republic could also participate could operate in the region of conflict. "Our capability of offering this aid will depend on the stands of the defence and foreign ministries," he said. Klaus criticised Georgia for having triggered the conflict in Monday's issue of Czech daily Mlada fronta Dnes and blamed Georgian politicians. "The share of the Georgian President, government and parliament in responsibility for the triggering of the war is beyond any discussion and it is evidently fatal," Klaus wrote. Czech opposition Social Democrat (CSSD) chairman Jiri Paroubek said today it is scandalous that Topolanek is "on a trip" to the Olympic Games in China at a time of the culminating Georgia crisis. "We are not an ordinary European Union country, we are the next president and a Czech top politician, or even the prime minister, should have travelled to Moscow with (French) President (Nicoals) Sarkozy," Paroubek said. France now holds EU presidency. It will hand it over to the Czech Republic as from January 1, 2009. Schwarzenberg told journalists after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers today that Russia has exceeded admissible limits when it invaded Georgia. The armed conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi erupted over he pro-Russian Georgian province of South Ossetia that Georgian units tried to conquer. The Georgians, however, clashed there with the Russian military that attacked them also outside the region at issue.
(Ceske Noviny)
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