Klaus meets former US top politicians Cheney, Ashcroft

Prague, Oct 8 (CTK) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus Monday met former U.S. Vice-President Richard Cheney and former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft who are attending the U.S. and EU Days conference in Prague.

Both Cheney and Ashcroft were top representatives of the administration of George W. Bush.

Cheney was secretary of defense under George H. W. Bush. He is considered one of the most conservative Republicans and the architect of Bush Jr's anti-terrorist policy after the September 9, 2001 terrorist attack.

Within the anti-terrorism struggle, Ashcroft was pushing through controversial legislation curbing some civic freedoms for the sake of security.

Klaus has been close to U.S. conservatives in the long term, but he had big reservations about the foreign policy of the Bush Jr administration, for example to the invasion of Iraq.

On Tuesday, Klaus will meet former U.S. secretaries of the treasury Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, who also take part in the U.S. and EU Days conference in Prague, one of whose topics is the forthcoming U.S. presidential election.

Apart from the U.S. representatives, British former prime minister Gordon Brown and former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski are attending the conference that was opened by Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) this morning.

Europe and the United States should lift the persisting trade barriers and create a single free trade zone, Necas said.