Prague, Aug 30 (CTK) – The forthcoming trip of President Milos Zeman to China and his participation in the celebration of the anniversary of World War Two’s end in the Pacific harms neither the Czech foreign policy nor the Czech position in the European Union, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka told Prima TV yesterday.
Zeman will also take part in a military parade on Tiananmen Square in Beijing scheduled for September 4.
Sobotka said the Czech Republic received no information from anoother EU country about any boycott of the Chinese celebrations.
“Some EU members tried to open a debate on this issue, but it was not a position of all EU countries,” Sobotka said.
According to previous information, Zeman will be the only Western president attending the military parade in Beijing.
“China is a country that had tens of millions of victims during World War Two. China is not an aggressor, it has no problem within the international community now. I can see no problem in the president’s presence at the celebration,” Sobotka told Prima TV.
He said his government has been trying to improve the Czech relations to China from the beginning of its rule in early 2014.
European and American representatives refused to take part in the celebrations over their concerns about China’s possible military expansion in the region. But some Western countries will send their foreign ministers or other high officials to Beijing.
Zeman was invited to visit China by its President Xi Jinping. Most European politicians did not accept the invitation or they did not even receive it.
kva/dr
