CZECH FOREIGN MINISTER DENIES TALKS WITH PUTIN ON RUSSIAN RADAR IN AZERBAIJAN

Pravo, Prague
June 27 2008
Czech Rep.

[Interview with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg by Jitka Goetzova; place and date not given: "Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg: With Putin in Baku About Radar? Nonsense"]

[Goetzova] What do you have to say about KSCM [Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia] Chairman Vojtech Filip’s statement in the Chamber of Deputies that you are going to talk with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
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in Baku on 3 July about the use of the Russian radar in Azerbaijan?

[Schwarzenberg] It amused me. I wish to know on whose behalf I am supposed to conduct these talks. Chairman Filip should cast some light on this.

[Goetzova] Will you talk about the radar with anyone else there?

[Schwarzenberg] I will not talk about the radar there at all.

[Goetzova] So what is the objective of your tour of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia next week?

[Schwarzenberg] There will be V4 [Visegrad Four, regional grouping of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia] in Georgia [sentence as published]. I have the honour of representing the Visegrad Four and I will have talks with my counterparts in these countries.

[Goetzova] You said that the financial audit of Deputy Prime Minister Jiri Cunek’s finances [concerning Cunek’s alleged corruption] would be ready at the turn of June and July. Have you received the results?

[Schwarzenberg] It is nearing the end, but I have nothing in my hands yet. I let the auditors do their work and I am waiting for what they will give me.

[Goetzova] How will you announce the conclusions of the verdict?

[Schwarzenberg] When I have the results of the audit in my hands, I will first show them to those people with whom I had agreed on this procedure, that is, the prime minister, the Green Party chairman, and of course Mr Cunek.

[Goetzova] Could President Klaus’s pardon for drug smuggler Emil Novotny disrupt our relations with Thailand, where he was originally sentenced to 50 years in prison?

[Schwarzenberg] This is a surprise for me. I do not know about it. I returned late last night from a foreign visit.

[Goetzova] The president argues that Novotny committed the crime at a very young age and that he had suffered enough in the Thai prison.

[Schwarzenberg] This is the president’s right and I do not want to interfere in this.