Foreign minister: no end in sight of ambassadorial row with president

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg told the news website idnes.cz on Saturday there was no resolution in sight to his ongoing row with the president, Miloš Zeman, over ambassadorial appointments. The dispute broke out last month when President Zeman proposed the wife of Václav Klaus, Livia, as the ambassador to Slovakia and former Czechoslovak astronaut Vladimír Remek, to the Czech mission in Moscow. The nominations were rejected by Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg who maintained it was his role to nominate ambassadors who are only then appointed by the president. On Saturday, Mr Schwarzenberg said there was no development in the row which could take “a year or two” to resolve.