Lipavsky: We're in Talks About My Potential Visit to Slovakia

Prague/Bratislava, March 19 (TASR) - Czech Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Lipavsky met with his Slovak counterpart Juraj Blanar on the sidelines of the EU Foreign Affairs Council's session in Brussels on Tuesday and discussed Lipavsky's potential visit to Bratislava, TASR learnt on the same day. "Yesterday I talked with the Slovak foreign affairs minister about my potential visit to Bratislava. We've been holding very preliminary negotiations on that," Lipavsky told Czech website Seznam Zpravy. According to Lipavsky, Blanar declared that as a member of the Czech Government Lipavsky is always welcome in Slovakia. Lipavsky added that the Czech Republic is prepared to have practical ties with Slovakia. Lipavsky pointed out that the Czech foreign affairs policy is significantly more in tune with that of Poland than Slovakia at the moment. "With Poland, we certainly share the same principled view of the Russian aggression and the Russian imperialism that threatens the security of the entire Europe," he emphasized. In early March, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that in response to Slovakia's new foreign policy the Czech Republic will discontinue the Czech-Slovak intergovernmental consultations that were slated for late April/early May. "It was a strong gesture on part of the Czech Government. And we must realize again that this was accompanied by no raising of conditions. These were specific reservations made with a mind to changing the atmosphere, the climate of Czech-Slovak ties," noted Lipavsky. In Lipavsky's view, this is not the right time to hold a joint session of the Slovak and Czech Governments in light of their diametrically different stances regarding the conflict in Ukraine. He pointed out that a meeting of Visegrad Four [V4: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia] foreign ministers will be held in Prague on Thursday (March 21), due to be attended also by Blanar. "Hence, the contacts between us still exist," added Lipavsky. mf