Maxime Verhagen: “Shaking hands with dictator is a bad signal”

• 26.04.2009, 10:10

The Dutch foreign minister harshly criticised an idea to invite the Belarusian dictator to Prague.

“Shaking hands with a dictator is a bad signal,” Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen told journalists about a possible participation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka in the Eastern partnership summit in Prague.

Verhagen said he didn’t need to stress: the invitation is not for Lukashenka but for Belarus, radio Svaboda reports. “We hope Minsk will understand this and send the prime minister or the minister of foreign affaires,” the Dutch foreign minister noted. According to the diplomat, “shaking hands with a dictator is a bad signal”.

It should be reminded that Czech president Vaclav Klaus spoke against visit of the Belarusian dictator to the EU summit. He said he would neither shake hands with Lukashenka nor receive him to his presidential palace.

The Chairperson of the Standing Czech Senate Commission on Assistance to Worldwide Democracy Vlastimil Sehnal has come out against the visit of Alyaksandr Lukashenka to Prague. “We simply shouldn’t allow him to leave the plane,” the politician noted.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, noted the Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg had invited for the EU summit not Alyaksandr Lukashenka but Belarus.