The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, assured Slovakia’s foreign minister, Mikuláš Dzurinda, at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers' in Brussels on Monday, November 14, that a protest note would be sent to Ethiopia after Slovak Ambassador to Ethiopia Milan Dubček was detained by the authorities there for two days in early November.
Dzurinda said that in addition to apologising for the incident, Ethiopia would be expected to provide guarantees that no such move would occur in future, the TASR newswire reported. Dzurinda stressed that what happened in Ethiopia should not negatively affect Slovakia's involvement in East Africa and that his planned humanitarian trip to Kenya and South Sudan before Christmas would still take place.
Asked whether Ethiopia's first reaction to the incident was satisfactory, Dzurinda responded negatively. "We received a response from Addis Ababa within three days of the incident, but we don't consider it to be sufficient," he said, adding that he welcomes the EU's initiative to address the issue with a protest note.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
