The Prauge Post
NEW YORK- President Vaclav Klaus will launch his book "On Road to Democracy: the Czech Republic from the Communist Regime to the Free Society" at the begining of next week, the Presidential Office and the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) said on their webpages.
The English-written publication, published by the conservative think tank NCPA, will be introduced at a press conferences in Dallas, Texas, on Monday and in Washington on Tuesday.
Klaus will first meet the NCPA leadership and Texas senators, and in Washington, he will have interviews with the U.S. media.
He returns home on Wednesday.
Since his election two years ago, Klaus has visited the USA twice, but he has not conducted an official visit to Washington.
Klaus said recently that he had been promised by the U.S. authorities that before this private visit, he would be told a proposed date of his official visit to the White House.
Klaus has met Bush several times at various international events. Lastly, it was in Brussels last weekend when Bush met the EU heads of state. On the occasion, Klaus said that he had received a personal invitation to visit from Bush.
According to some commentators, Klaus's relationship with the White House could have been affected by his disagreement with the U.S. operation in Iraq. Klaus, who was not yet the president when the decision about the Czech involvement was being made, said that Bush had expected the Czech Republic's greater involvement.
"I think that this determined a certain relationship for a time. I think that the time is over," Klaus said on the Nova commercial television station on Sunday.
During his recent tour of Europe, Bush tried to warm EU-U.S. relations, which cooled in connection with the war in Iraq.
According to the latest reactions, he has apparently managed to overcome previous discrepancies and lay the foundations to revive the trans-Atlantic cooperation.
Klaus was already an NCPA guest in September 2003, when he was given the Crystal Eagle from the NCPA in the presence of 600 most outstanding personalities of Texas.
In an open letter to Klaus, Bush appreciated his ability to lead and his support to the principles of market economy.
The NCPA is a non-profit, non-partisan organisation which has set as its aim to develop and advocate private alternatives to the government decisions, and settle the problems with the use of the forces of the ambitious and enterprising private sector.
It sees as its mission to search for new solutions to the problems of public life through the initiatives of the private sector. It holds the belief that ideas had an extraordinary force to change the course of human events.
The NCPA staged information briefings, conferences and performances of its experts in the U.S. Congress and its committees. It serves as an external source of encouragement for parliamentary decisions, NCPA says about itself.