PRAGUE, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - The Czech Republic has put a freeze on all political contacts with Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, the republic's First Deputy Foreign Minister Petr Drulak said Sunday in a television announcement.
"We have currently stalled all standard political contacts with Russia, they have been frozen," the deputy foreign chief said, adding, "they had been frozen back when the situation was far less serious than now."
According to Petr Drulak, Prague has put on hold all contacts between Czech and Russian ministers and significantly curbed cooperation between their deputies.
"De facto, our current contacts are purely technical and very work-like," the senior Czech diplomat said.
Russia's reunification with its former republic of Crimea in mid-March, following a nationalist coup in Kiev and a referendum in the Russian-majority Crimea, drove a wedge between Moscow and the largely pro-Kiev Western countries led by the United States. The split prompted a major geopolitical standoff and rounds upon rounds of sanctions from the European Union and Washington.
