Foreign minister praises non-violent aftermath of Iron Curtain's fall

Prague, June 27 (CTK) - Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg appreciated leaders of the former Soviet Union and Western powers for having behaved responsibly and thus prevented violence after the fall of the Iron Curtain, he said at a conference on the Warsaw Pact's end yesterday.

The two-day international conference titled "Europe - Whole and Free? Two Decades Since the End of the Warsaw Pact" takes place in Prague on June 27-28.

Schwarzenberg, TOP 09 chairman, said the collapse of the Eastern bloc provoked fears of instability in the world. It is clear now that they were exaggerated, he added.

"We must bow to the then representatives on both sides who behaved very responsibly," he said in his speech.

The whole process changing the balance of forces in the world was calm and non-violent exactly thanks to the then politicians' decisions, Schwarzenberg noted.

Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra (senior ruling Civic Democrats, ODS) said he Warsaw Pact had been mainly a power tool for Moscow to "keep its satellites under control" since its establishment in 1955.

"The pact's only military action was the occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968," he said.

However, the "temporary aid" turned into a permanent presence of Soviet troops on Czechoslovak territory. "Our first goal immediately after the revolution in November 1989 was a prompt departure od Soviet troops," Vondra noted.

He also appreciated the then Moscow representatives. They were able to react to the changing situation in the world, he said.

Vondra also praised the effort to arrange the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the then Czechoslovakia as quickly as possible.

Vondra recalled that not even Western powers headed by the United States supported a quick withdrawal of the Soviet army from Central Europe.

Vondra called the then Czechoslovak president Vaclav Havel's visit to Moscow where he met his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev a breakthrough.

Both politicians succeeded in wording the demand for a formal split of the Soviet power structure in Central Europe quite quickly, Vondra added.

Havel, Czechoslovak and Czech president in 1989-2003, was originally also to attend the conference but eventually he only sent a written message to the participants which his long-term aide Oldrich Cerny read.

Havel wrote that immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain, no one in Europe knew how the further developments would look like.

"He who is too much prepared for history seems slightly suspicious to me," Cerny cited from Havel's letter.

A number of possibilities of the world policy's course emerged then, Havel recalled. He called this period hectic and recalled that talks with world statesmen were often very informal then.

The two-day conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary for the Warsaw Past's dissolution is held by the Foreign Ministry and the Opona (Curtain) association, which wants to get young generations acquainted with the events accompanying the communist regimes' collapse.

Gorbachev also sent his greetings to the Prague conference.