Slovak and Czech Foreign Affairs Ministers Meet at Symposium in Topolcianky

Topolcianky, 10 June (TASR) - The Czech and Slovak Foreign Ministers, Jan Lipavsky and Juraj Blanar (Smer-SD), respectively, met in the municipality of Topolcianky (Nitra region) on Tuesday at a discussion symposium called Forum Topolcianky, which is being held on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the birth of first Czechoslovak president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and the 145th anniversary of the birth of Slovak diplomat Milan Rastislav Stefanik. The Foreign Affairs Ministry pointed out that the forum is being accompanied by an expert discussion involving historians and academics from both countries. The programme also includes a bilateral meeting between the foreign ministers. "The further development of Slovak-Czech relations and regional cooperation within the Visegrad Four [V4: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia] and the Austerlitz format [S3: Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia] are high on the agenda of the event," added the ministry. In his speech, Slovak Foreign Minister Blanar pointed to the common state and history of Czechs and Slovaks, stressing that the existence of small countries is based on coexistence with other states. "Today we must emphasise that a state can exist and function only thanks to rules, and they are the rules of international law, which are defined by the United Nations. And these must be respected and observed, despite the fact that we are witnessing an enormous erosion of them. That's why we need to keep coming back to them. I'm very glad that today Minister Jan Lipavsky and I can express together our common will to follow up on our history and to build on it, despite the fact that both nations have their own visions of how to move forward and promote their sovereign national interests," said Blanar. Czech Foreign Minister Lipavsky drew attention to the legacy of Masaryk and Stefanik and the difficult circumstances under which the Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) was founded. "In the chaos after the First World War, they came up with their own vision of an independent state. We must value their legacy because there were several ideas about the political order, and not all of them would have entailed good prospects for the emerging Czechoslovakia. We know that there were ideas about restoring the Kingdom of Bohemia under the protection of Tsarist Russia. Masaryk and Stefanik chose the right path, the path of democracy, freedom and humanism. They chose a Western-style order, and their values and ideals became the basis on which we were able to build after 1989," stated Lipavsky. am/df