By Muhammad Sohail
On Thursday, December 12, 2024, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jan Lipavský, received the stamp and seal that confirmed the end of the so-called The Warsaw Pact from the hands of Hana Hlaváčková, chairwoman of the Czechoslovak Foreign Institute (ČSÚZ). He had these two typesetters in his possession in the past period.
“I am very happy that we managed to complete this valuable collection of archives. Now we can start the process of declaring the Protocol on the Dissolution of the Warsaw Pact as an archival cultural monument,” said Minister Lipavský at the ceremony. The acceptance of the stamp and seal took place at the beginning of the traditional event that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organizes at the end of the year as a thank you to its partners, institutions and non-governmental organizations for cooperation in the field of expatriate policy.
“The signing of the Protocol on the Dissolution of the Warsaw Pact concluded a period in our history that not only divided Europe, but also distanced compatriots from the Czech homeland. The effort of our politics today is to connect and remove ties that have been broken by history. In this context, I highly value the promotion of the correspondence method of voting in elections for Czechs abroad, ” added the head of Czech diplomacy.
Signing the protocol on the termination of the so-called The Warsaw Pact, officially the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, took place on July 1, 1991 in the great hall of the Černín Palace. Its original is stored in the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and was exhibited for inspection on this occasion.
