Prague, May 4 (CTK) – The Czech parliament should deal with President Milos Zeman’s interpretation of the information from secret services on the production of the Novichok agent in the Czech Republic, some senators told journalists today.
Zeman said on Thursday that he preferred the view of the military intelligence that the Novichok nerve poison that was used to attack former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in Britain in March was produced in the Czech Republic last year, although the BIS counter-intelligence said the produced substance was not Novichok.
Miroslav Kalousek, chairman of the TOP 09 deputy group, said an extraordinary session of the Chamber of Deputies should be held over Zeman’s statement.
The affair is to be discussed by its foreign affairs committee next week, prompted by Jan Lipavsky (Pirates).
Kalousek said Zeman’s scandalous statement should be rectified.
“In this sense, I have turned to all chairpersons of deputy groups with a request to call an extraordinary meeting,” Kalousek said.
The foreign committee is to deal with the affair on May 10.
Senate chairman Milan Stech (Social Democrats, CSSD) said Zeman’s statement had surprised him and called it “dangerous to our nation.”
Stech said the coordination between the foreign and security policy of top elected officials in the form of their meetings with Zeman did not work.
Stech said he presumed the affair would be dealt with by the Chamber of Deputies bodies as well as the Senate defence and security committee.
“We may deal with it,” the chairman of the Senate committee, Frantisek Bublan (CSSD), said.
Bublan repeated that Zeman had acted in a wrong way when he tasked the BIS to investigate the presence of Novichok in the Czech Republic and when he commented on the conclusions of secret services on television.
Bublan said the report was certainly comprehensive and Zeman only chose something from it.
“This is a clearly pro-Kremlin act, nothing else arises from this,” Bublan said.
“The parliament should deal with various outputs of our secret services. Due to this, with Zeman’s statements, too,” Senate deputy chairman Jiri Sestak (Mayors and Independents, STAN) said.
“The statements are unfortunate because these are Zeman’s deductions from various reports from security services. This harms the Czech Republic’s reputation as it serves Russia’ manipulating information,” Sestak said.
Jan Hornik, the chairman of STAN senators, said the parliament should deal with the affair because Zeman’s harming the Czech Republic was close to anti-state activities.
