Černochová: Defence deal will not mean US bases in Czechia

A defence cooperation agreement between Czechia and the US that is due to be signed in Washington on Tuesday is not a treaty on basing US soldiers on Czech soil or on the creation of an American military base in the country, the Czech minister of defence, Jana Černochová, told reporters. She was speaking just hours before she and her American counterpart, Lloyd Austin, were due to put their signatures to the document in the US capital.

Ms. Černochová told Czech Television that the Czech side had got as much as possible out of the agreement.

The Czech defence chief and the speaker of the Czech lower house, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, also laid a wreath at a monument in Washington to the founder of Czechoslovakia, T.G. Masaryk.