Prague, Sept 3 (CTK) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev will pay an official visit to Prague this month, his first after 17 years, and attend the international conference dealing with security after the Cold War, journalist Milan Syrucek told CTK on behalf of the organisers on Saturday.
The September 16-18 conference, which is also to focus on European security and Russia and ways to solve new security problems, has been initiated by Gorbachev.
Apart from attending it, he plans to meet Czech President Milos Zeman.
The conference has been organised by the Gorbachev Foundation, Fondazione Italiani and the Iron Curtain Foundation in cooperation with the European Movement in the Czech Republic.
The Czech organisers include former Social Democrat (CSSD) foreign minister Jan Kavan.
Gorbachev, 85, will give the opening speech and a press conference at the close of the event.
“He will also be received by President [Zeman] in the Lany [chateau] on Sunday, September 18,” Syrucek said.
No other meetings have been scheduled as yet, he said.
On the first day of the conference, Gorbachev will present Syrucek’s book “Mikhail Gorbachev – Did he save Prague from bloodshed?”
The organisers will present more details about the conference and Gorbachev’s visit at a press conference in Prague on September 8.
Syrucek said Gorbachev visited Czechoslovakia in 1969 for the first time. His last official visit so far was in 1999, when he received the top state award, Order of the White Lion, together with other world statespersons, from Czech president Vaclav Havel.
Afterwards, he paid only a private visit to the Czech Republic in 2002 when he stayed in the Karlovy Vary spa.
After becoming the Soviet communist leader in 1985, Gorbachev launched changes that were meant to reform the communist regime and reinforce the Soviet empire. However, the Soviet Union fell apart and the communist system collapsed.
Only later, Gorbachev admitted that it was beyond any reform.
Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
