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Czech president against appreciation of Sudeten German antifascists

President Vaclav Klaus criticised the government for its statement in which it appreciated the merits of German antifascists and apologised for their postwar suffering in Czechoslovakia. The cabinet's step is an erroneous, unnecessary and empty gesture which may harm the Czech Republic, Klaus said.

Klaus said that the sensitive historic chapter had been resolved and closed by the Czech-German declaration, agreed on by the Czech and German governments in 1997.

Moreover, a number of historians and experts say that those to whom the gesture relates "make up a group which can be hardly defined and which is in many cases problematic," Klaus said in a press release.

Klaus complained that the government and the Foreign Ministry had not consulted him on the statement.

Read entire article at ČTK (Czech Republic)