Foreign Minister, US ambassador lobby for Czech firms in Iraq

Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda and the new U.S. ambassador to Prague William Cabaniss visited the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Thursday to help Czech firms bid for post-war reconstruction contracts. The visit followed this week's announcement by Washington that at least three unnamed countries would be allowed to bid on the next round of projects. Rob Cameron has more.

Foreign Minister, US ambassador lobby for Czech firms in Iraq

Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla and Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda, photo: CTK

Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda and the newly-appointed ambassador William Cabaniss spent much of Thursday in talks with members of the Coalition Provisional Authority and Iraq's oil, water and energy ministers. Also with them were representatives of twelve Czech companies hoping to win lucrative bids to rebuild the country. Ambassador Cabaniss was upbeat after the day's talks in Baghdad:

"I'm optimistic it will mean contracts down the road. We didn't go there with the expectation that any contracts would be signed today. It was a meeting and learning how the chain of command works there and who really are the people who these different businesses should be getting together with."

William Cabaniss and Vaclav Klaus, photo: CTK

Czech engineering firms built 60 percent of Iraq's petrochemical infrastructure in the 1980s, and many of the same companies are hoping to win the chance of rebuilding infrastructure that was shattered by a decade of sanctions and war. Czech Radio's Jaromir Janev accompanied the foreign minister on his mission to the Gulf. He says Czech firms have a good chance of winning some of the multi-billion contracts up for grabs:

"There is really a good probability that Czech companies will win quite a large slice of the pie. I think the most important and crucial thing in this respect is the support of the American administration, and this was proclaimed in Baghdad in the presence of the American ambassador to Prague."

Iraq - Basra, photo: CTK

And that's despite the rather lukewarm support offered by the Czech Republic to Washington during the Iraq war, a time when Mr Svoboda appeared to be saying one thing, and the prime minister and president another. Jaromir Janev says as far as Washington is concerned, the Czech Republic was and remains an ally in Iraq:

"The United States does not take it like that. I think that for the United States, the Czech Republic, with its history and its experience, its support for the American campaign - whatever are the opinions of Czech participation - was very important and is very important. So I think that this is why this was practically the first state-supported mission of companies of one country. This was really an official mission which had the support of the government of the Czech Republic and also of the American administration."