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| Europe | |
| Russia angered by EU request | |
| 2004-09-04 | |
| Russia has denounced as "blasphemous" a request by the European Union's Dutch presidency for an explanation for the bloody end to a mass hostage seizure at a school by Chechen gunmen. Bot gonna get bopped? But Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, who made the request in a statement on Friday on behalf of the EU presidency, said on Saturday he had been misunderstood and he would try to calm the row by talking to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. "There obviously was a misunderstanding," Bot told a news conference after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Netherlands. "My words have been misinterpreted. I never said that I needed to be ... informed." The only misunderstanding that's happening is your own misunderstanding of concepts like decency... More than 320 people, almost half of them children, were found dead after troops stormed a school on Friday in the southern Russian town of Beslan, where Chechen separatists had held more than 1,000 hostages for 53 hours. In a statement issued in the name of the EU presidency on Friday, Bot said all countries should work together to stop such tragedies, adding: "We also would like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened." The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted with outrage to Bot's statement, and Interfax news agency said the Dutch ambassador had been summoned to the ministry to explain. You got some 'splainin to do, Lucy! "Mr Bot's elaborations are an absolute contrast with the wide international support and solidarity with Russia in these tragic days," a ministry statement said. "Inappropriate statements by the Dutch minister look odious ... and blasphemous. We expect explanations from the Dutch side."
...then I will endeavor to keep my job. At Valkenburg in the Netherlands, where the EU ministers were meeting, Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds told reporters she understood the Russian reaction and Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said it would be "a very premature and wrong judgment" to fault the Russian security forces. Besides, they have all those tanks and we've already pissed off our American friends! | |
| Posted by:MrO |
| #19 C_L You mean he'd be filleted by the locals, then fed to those dogs they were talking about awhile ago. Go there Michael, please! As to Bernard "lobotomy-Bait" Bot. Join Michael Moor, PLEASE! |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-09-04 11:48:24 PM |
| #18 He'd be flayed alive by the locals. |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2004-09-04 11:20:02 PM |
| #17 "For the love of God - donât let Michael Moore get within 1000 miles of Beslan. He must be drooling at the prospect of âBowling for Beslan" You might want to rethink that. What do you think would happen to Michael Moore if he went there and started spouting his version of the "truth"? |
| Posted by: Lurks Often 2004-09-04 9:53:42 PM |
| #16 For the love of God - donât let Michael Moore get within 1000 miles of Beslan. He must be drooling at the prospect of âBowling for Beslanâ. |
| Posted by: Bill Nelson 2004-09-04 9:13:03 PM |
| #15 The EU and the UN both breed a certain strain of bureaucrat that indulges in the delusion of significance. Look for chaos in the UN and EU once Putin finally realizes what W has known all along: these bureaucrats are bugs that need to be squashed. |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-09-04 9:10:41 PM |
| #14 "My words have been misinterpreted. I never said that I needed to be ... informed." So why you askin' about it? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-09-04 8:43:45 PM |
| #13 Der Dutch have actually been quite active pursuing Islamofascists. This asshat's problem is he is now in the EU heirarchy and doesn't speak for the Netherlands. |
| Posted by: Brett_the_Quarkian 2004-09-04 7:10:43 PM |
| #12 Dear Mr Putin As a citizen of Eurostan, I can assure you that its politicians do indeed suck as much ass as the aptly-named Mr Bot's statement would suggest. Please use every ounce of your KGB fieldcraft skills to undermine and destroy the EU, as it is not only a heinous waste of taxpayers money, (which could be spent on fine Russian vodka instead), but a major security threat to the whole non-Muslim world, especially Russia. Best wishes Allan U. McBar |
| Posted by: Allan U. McBar 2004-09-04 6:53:57 PM |
| #11 Dum ole me, but I thought it was stock in trade of diplomats to be clear, tactful, and resourceful in their communications. I just checked Babel Fish. The English translation of the Dutch word "bot" is "bone". Must be short for bonehead. |
| Posted by: GK 2004-09-04 5:57:56 PM |
| #10 Robert Crawford---Why couldn't Bot just issue a statement of outrage, support, and sympathy, and go through quiet channels to ask about how things happen? Seems elementary, Watson. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-09-04 5:26:12 PM |
| #9 Actually, it COULD be taken as: "Could you tell us the mechanics of how they did it?" Except that's not how it was meant. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-09-04 5:21:52 PM |
| #8 The Euro politicians will be more and more on the hands of islam as more inhabitants (=voters) of their countries have the islam as a religion. So don't be surprised by the stupid statements of a Dutch politician that represents a country that will have an islamic majority within the next 100 years. |
| Posted by: Dutchgeek 2004-09-04 5:21:24 PM |
| #7 Actually, it COULD be taken as: "Could you tell us the mechanics of how they did it?", with an eye for forming an EU committee to look into countermeasures and develop a unified response, by which time any suggestions would be moot and implementation pointless since the entire continent would be under Sharia law by that time... |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-09-04 5:16:34 PM |
| #6 ZF---This is more like dumb cop/dumb cop on the part of the foreign minister. With dumbass ideas like that, the EU ministers better watch their schools. Their local crop of jihadis could start playing monkey see/monkey do. I am so upset over the murder and traumatizing of all these kids that I can hardly think straight. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-09-04 5:14:36 PM |
| #5 Interesting press conference by Putin broadcast on Estonian TV this evening. The highlights -- and my Russian is poor -- is that he mea culpa'ed on the threat to Russia, that the government couldn't see this coming. Plenty of video of Putin, dressed like Johnny Cash, visiting children in the hospitals. He also made a statement to the effect that the gloves are off on Islamic terrorism. |
| Posted by: Baltic Blog 2004-09-04 5:11:44 PM |
| #4 [Among over 350 dead] of those who died from gunshot wounds, most were shot in the back as they fled the building, he said. EMPAHSIS ADDED Putin should ask Bot to explain that statistic. Equally important is how Putin must now sever all ties with Iran. If he cannot do that, some degree of blame must be assumed by him, if not for Beslan, then for the next terror attack that is sure to come. Iran's hive of terror relies on Putin's assistance. He knows it, we know it and the world needs to know it as well. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-09-04 5:10:57 PM |
| #3 These are sophisticated Europeans who understand how to communicate with other cultures using nuance instead of the arrogance that comes so naturally to cowboys. When the Americans elect Kery, they too can look forward to being served by equally sensitive diplomats. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-09-04 4:58:13 PM |
| #2 "And may we remind you that an attack upon one NATO country would be viewed as an attack against all NATO countries. Right, Tony? Right, George?... C'mon, guys, this is no time to be playing around." |
| Posted by: Matt 2004-09-04 4:54:58 PM |
| #1 How did this guy get appointed the Foreign Minister? Aren't foreign ministers supposed to play good cop? This must be some kind of new EUnuch approach to foreign relations - a bad cop, bad cop strategy. If these guys will go hat in hand to Iran, why are they thumbing their noses to Russia? |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-09-04 4:49:26 PM |