Europe News
Czech-US missile shield deal inked on table with moved history
Jul 10, 2008, 14:19 GMT
Prague - The top US and Czech diplomats, Condoleezza Rice and Karel Schwarzenberg, took a seat at a majestic period table earlier this week when they inked a deal to build a US missile shield base in the Czech Republic.
They reportedly had no clue that the piece of furniture had been a witness to an earlier pact welcoming foreign troops onto Czech territory.
Mlada Fronta Dnes daily observed Thursday that the Soviet and Czechoslovak premiers, Alexey Kosygin and Oldrich Cernik, used the same table 40 years earlier to sign an accord affirming the Soviet occupation of then Czechoslovakia.
'It is not in my power to know what furniture was used when. The table is not to blame,' the newspaper cited Schwarzenberg as saying.
The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invaded then Czechoslovakia in August 1968 to quash the Prague Spring, a short-lived movement to reform the ill-functioning communist regime.
The Soviet occupation, now seen as a traumatic period in country's history, had lasted for more than two decades.
COMMENT
blog comments powered by DisqusLatest Headlines in Europe
- 1. Pope in Easter message calls for peace and religious tolerance
- 2. Magnificent Messi leads Barcelona to ninth straight win
- 3. Pope leads Easter vigil, calls for "true enlightenment"
- 4. Barcelona increase pressure on Real with romp in Zaragoza
- 5. Pope Benedict XVI leads Easter Vigil
Older Talkback
