Prague, Jan 1 (CTK) – Jindrich Forejt, Czech presidential protocol former head, will also terminate his employment with the Foreign Ministry as from January 2 based on his written request, the ministry said in a press release yesterday.
Forejt resigned from the post at the Presidential Office for personal and health reasons as from December 6.
Forejt has been a Foreign Ministry employee since June 2015, but he was on an unpaid leave throughout the time.
Forejt would like to become ambassador to the Vatican. The Foreign Ministry said the termination of his employment with the ministry is no obstacle to this.
Briefly before the Presidential Office announced Forejt’s departure from the post of the protocol director, the media wrote about the existence of a compromising video allegedly featuring Forejt.
It has not been possible to verify the authenticity of the recording.
The media also put the developments in connection with alleged rivalry between Forejt on the one side and Chancellor Vratislav Mynar and President Milos Zeman’s adviser Martin Nejedly on the other side.
Forejt worked with the Presidential Office from 2002. Two years later, he became the protocol head.
After his resignation from the Presidential Office, Zeman said he still believes that Forejt will become ambassador to the Vatican.
He said it depends on the Foreign Ministry and the Vatican’s agrement.
Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek reacted saying that debates on the filling of ambassadorial posts are to be exclusively held by the countries concerned, not in public.
Michaela Lagronova, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, told CTK yesterday that the candidate for the post of ambassador need not be an employee of the Foreign Ministry.
“Anyone who is approved by the government and the president can become an ambassador,” she said.
However, the future ambassador to the Vatican must have the “confidential” security vetting.
According to the Tyden.cz server, Forejt had the certificate, but he returned it after he left the Presidential Office. Neither the office nor the National Security Office has confirmed or refuted the information.
Zeman previously denied Mynar and Nejedly’s intrigues having been behind Forejt’s departure from the Presidential Office.
A change at the head of the protocol was prepared for several months, Zeman told Radio Impuls.
He said he has not seen and does not want to see the compromising video.
Forejt was a close aide of Zeman. Recently, he made several mistakes for which he was criticised. In one of them, the U.N. flag instead of a NATO one was hoisted at Prague Castle during a visit by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to Prague.
Miroslav Sklenar, who headed the presidential protocol for a long time in the past, was put in charge of the department after Forejt’s departure.
ms/dr
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