Prague, Dec 6 (CTK) – U.S. president-elect Donald Trump invited Czech President Milos Zeman to visit the White House during their phone call yesterday, Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek has told CTK, adding that the visit might take place next April.
Zeman invited Trump to visit the Czech Republic. The invitation was accepted, Ovcacek said.
“U.S. president-elect Donald Trump praised the fact that the Czech President ‘was the sole European President’ who publicly supported him before the November election in the United States,” Ovcacek said.
The two politicians agreed that the end of next April, when Zeman is to receive an award from leading Jewish organisations in the United States, would be an ideal opportunity for the White House visit, Ovacek said.
The organisations awarded Trump last year, he added.
Zeman and Trump spoke about their shared stance on the struggle against Islamic terrorism and discussed other spheres of political and economic cooperation between their countries, Ovcacek said.
Asked whether Zeman phoned Trump, or conversely, Ovcacek told CTK that they spoke to one another based on their agreement.
Still before the U.S. presidential election, Zeman said he would vote for Trump if he were a U.S. citizen.
At a press conference following Trump’s victory, Zeman expressed great joy at the result and cordially congratulated Trump.
In a letter of congratulations, Zeman invited Trump to visit the Czech Republic.
Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said the White House invitation for Zeman is an excellent piece of news.
He said this is a chance of continuing the intensive and good relations between the two countries after Trumps’s administration assumes power.
Zaoralek said negotiations about the exact date of Zeman’s visit to the White House continue.
In mid-November, Zeman spoke by phone with Ivana Trump, former wife of the president-elect, who comes from the Czech Republic.
She expressed the wish to be an ambassador to the Czech Republic, according to the U.S. press.
Zeman thanked her for her courage and said the United States cannot send a better ambassador to Prague.
Zeman visited the United States in his capacity as president three times. Twice he attended a session of the U.N. General Assembly, once he made a speech at a congress of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Until now, he has not been invited to the White House.
However, president George Bush Jr briefly received Zeman in his capacity as prime minister in the White House in November 2001.
Vaclav Havel has been the sole Czech president to be received in the White House on the highest level by Bill Clinton in 1998. Still before, he was there in his capacity as Czechoslovak president. He held the post from the fall of communism in former Czechoslovakia in late 1989 until mid-1992.
The second Czech president, Vaclav Klaus (2003-13), visited the United States repeatedly, but he never went there on an official state visit.
In 2005, when he was presenting his new book in the United States, he had a meeting of about 30 minutes with president George Bush in the White House. U.S. vice-presidents received him in the White House several times.
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