Posted on 03/01/2006 12:44:30 PM PST by x5452
Russia morally responsible for 1968 invasion: Putin Wed Mar 1, 2006 2:47 PM ET
PRAGUE (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday his country bore a moral responsibility for the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, but stopped short of offering an apology that many Czechs have long sought.
The invasion ended the pro-democracy movement known as the "Prague Spring" and put the country firmly under Moscow's thumb.
"We do not bear any legal responsibility, but the moral responsibility is there," Putin said at a news conference in Prague after arriving on Wednesday as part of a trip to central Europe to build bridges with the former Soviet satellites.
Many Czechs have hoped for a formal apology from Moscow but there has not been one. Former presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vaclav Havel signed a friendship treaty in 1993 repudiating the invasion and the occupation that followed.
Moscow had been growing increasingly nervous throughout 1968 at the liberalization reforms of Czechoslovak Communist leader Alexander Dubcek, which included lifting censorship, and was under pressure to act from its other Warsaw Pact allies who feared contagion from the Prague Spring.
In one night, 4,600 tanks and 165,000 troops invaded from neighboring Poland, Hungary and East Germany.
About 120 people were killed. Dubcek and the rest of the reformist leadership were abducted to Moscow where they agreed under pressure to backtrack on the liberalization.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus told the news conference that the two countries must now look to the future and not let the past hinder relations.
Just prior to the news conference, officials signed several bilateral agreements aimed at bringing closer cooperation between Russia and the Czech Republic.
While Putin is at it, can we expect an apology for the invasion of Hungary in 1956?
That was done just before this one.
What's done is done and can't be undone.
Bush saw this in Putin's eyes.
Gee whiz, it's so simple ain't it. The Pope apologizes for the Crusades, Bubba apologizes for the lies, maybe we can make everything all right by getting Osama to apologize for 9/11. Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.
Seriously? I don't recall this.
If so, I stand corrected.
There is a 1954 thread running parallel to this one.
I can't get the search to pull up the Hungarian thread, it might scroll by again.
He apologized for this yesterday while in Hungary actually.
Ping
So will he complete the trifecta and apologize for Katyn?
I wouldn't count on it.
Maybe he would, if Poland was meek and acquiescent about Ukraine, or Belarus, or the Baltic pipeline.
I think Putin is showing he is a big man by doing this. On the Hungarian thread one of the Russianphobes appears to be upset that he is losing the target for his attacks.
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