02-18-2002, 08:52 AM
Czech PM: You can't talk to terrorists
By Herb Keinon and Greer Fay Cashman
JERUSALEM (February 18) - Using uncompromising language towards Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat rarely heard in public by a foreign leader, visiting Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman said Israel must absolutely not compromise with terrorists.
Drawing on Czechoslovakia's experience during World War II, when the allies sought to appease Germany by sacrificing the Czech Sudetenland to Hitler, Zeman said: "You cannot negotiate with terrorists because the single response of terrorists for fulfilling their demands is blackmail - new demands, nothing more."
"This was our experience with the regime of Adolph Hitler," Zeman said. "In 1936 he could have been defeated by two French divisions during the occupation of the Rhineland, and there was no courage by democratic countries because of the appeasement policy. I wonder whether there is no repetition of this danger of appeasement, the willingness for compromises which leads to cowardice only." Zeman, on a two-day visit here as the head of a large Czech delegation including government and business leaders, made his comments at a press conference after meeting Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
By Herb Keinon and Greer Fay Cashman
JERUSALEM (February 18) - Using uncompromising language towards Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat rarely heard in public by a foreign leader, visiting Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman said Israel must absolutely not compromise with terrorists.
Drawing on Czechoslovakia's experience during World War II, when the allies sought to appease Germany by sacrificing the Czech Sudetenland to Hitler, Zeman said: "You cannot negotiate with terrorists because the single response of terrorists for fulfilling their demands is blackmail - new demands, nothing more."
"This was our experience with the regime of Adolph Hitler," Zeman said. "In 1936 he could have been defeated by two French divisions during the occupation of the Rhineland, and there was no courage by democratic countries because of the appeasement policy. I wonder whether there is no repetition of this danger of appeasement, the willingness for compromises which leads to cowardice only." Zeman, on a two-day visit here as the head of a large Czech delegation including government and business leaders, made his comments at a press conference after meeting Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.