Czech PM Miloš Zeman: "I was the first one to support Russia's fight with terrorism in Chechnya."An excerpt from the interview of Czech Premier Miloš Zeman, who is visiting Russia on April 15-17, to Russian daily "Izvestia".
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Czech President Václav Havel does not welcome much the coming together of Russia and NATO. What your attitude to this prospective?
It is the government, not the president that is in charge of foreign policy. My cabinet fully supports the coming together of NATO and Russia - for two reasons. First, the current Russia is not the Russia of Leonid Brezhnev, who seized Czechoslovakia in 1968. It is a fully democratic state with parliamentary elections, competing political parties and a market economy. Russia is a part of the European culture, from which is cannot be excluded. It is not a country of Dzhugashvili and Brezhnev but of Tolstoi and Dostoyevski. And it is also a country of the current politicians, including your president.
Besides, after the September 11 terrorist attacks everything in the world has changed. There isn't the Cold War anymore, there is a common fight with terrorism, which is NATO's principal goal. And, I hope, it is also Russia's principal goal. Should this is the case, there are no obstacles to fully-fledged cooperation. However, I'd like to draw attention to the following fact: I was the first foreign politician who supported Russia's fight against terrorism in Chechnya.
At the same time, Russia has to accept that terrorism has to be fought against not only in Chechnya but in the whole world. There are no bad and good terrorists. I don't understand why do you support such Palestinian organisations like "Hamas", "Islamic Jihad", "Al-Aksa", why do you support Yasser Arafat? (...)
Are you ready to back the idea of Russia's joining the NATO?
In the long-run Russia can be presented as a NATO member. However, there are intermediary stages, namely the "19+1", "20" model, which is now being actively discussed.
Does the presence of Radio Svoboda in Prague affect your relations with Russia?
When there was a communist regime in our country, Radio Free Europe helped us to criticise it, bringing objective information. I can understand when Saddam Hussain speaks against a radio station which is critical to him. But Russia is a democratic state, so why should it act against Radio Svoboda?
Source: Izvestia
Translated by Prague Watchdog.
A note by Prague Watchdog: Premier Miloš Zeman repeatedly promised to quit the political scene after the next parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, which will be held in mid-June 2002.
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