MOSCOW, Feb. 14 (RIA Novosti). The Minister of Foreign Trade and Development of Cooperation of the Netherlands Sigrid Kag will be temporarily responsible for the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country. About the publication of De Telegraaf with reference to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Mark Rutte.

Kag will combine two posts after the decision of the Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zielstra to resign.

The Netherlands side previously officially informed about the cancellation of the visit to Russia Halbe Zailstra, RIA Novosti reported to the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

It was planned that Zaelstra would visit Russia on February 14 and meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Lies about "great Russia"

Zaelstra, in an interview with Volkskrant, earlier admitted that his story about how he was present at the meeting with the Russian president at his dacha in 2006 was untrue. According to the diplomat, he went on deception to protect the real participant of this meeting, who shared with him information that Putin allegedly called Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic and Kazakhstan parts of "great Russia".

Since 2014, Zailstra has repeatedly said that he heard these words personally.

Later, the foreign minister decided to resign.

"I made the wrong choice, I should not have done this ... I do not see any other option than to resign," the quotation of the De Telegraaf edition of the words of Zailstra
.
Lied and distorted

After the scandal broke out, it became clear that the Dutch Foreign Minister not only lied about meeting with the president, but also misinterpreted the words about "great Russia". Shell ex-director Jeroen van der Veer said that he was the source of the story about the meeting with Putin at his dacha in 2006, which was told by the Dutch Foreign Minister.

At the same time, Jeroen van der Veer said that Zailstra could misinterpret the words of the Russian leader, the Volkskrant newspaper reported.
According to him, the Russian leader said that "historically" the great Russia "is greater than today's Russia." According to the businessman, it is logical that the minister took Putin's words conveyed to him as a desire to influence the territory of the former "great Russia." At the same time, he stressed that he did not interpret Putin's words "in an aggressive sense."

Attempts to ascribe to Russia "great-power ambitions"

The Russian Embassy in the Netherlands stated that the incident with the statements of Halbe Zailstra is an internal affair of the kingdom, but Moscow believes that attempts by some countries to ascribe to Moscow "great-power ambitions" can not withstand any criticism.

"We do not have the right to comment on their assessments of the Zielstra act, since we regard this as an internal affair of Holland." At the same time, we can not leave without reaction the ideas persistently planted in Dutch public opinion about the aggressive intentions of the Russian leadership, to which, as we see, this story with the imaginary participation of Zailstra in a conversation with Putin, "the report said.

"Attempts to ascribe" great power ambitions "to Russia," the desire to recreate the "Soviet empire" does not stand up to any criticism, only those who are interested in creating an enemy image of Russia who, under the guise of the notorious "Russian threat", moves NATO's military infrastructure to the East , deliberately provoking a military confrontation, "- said in the Russian embassy.

The fall in the level of the world elite

The scandal with the Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zailstroy demonstrates the miserable state of the world's political elite, which is not responsible for its words, says the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Russia in Global Politics", the chairman of the Presidium of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy Fyodor Lukyanov.

"I would not attach any importance to this from the point of view of the heat of the anti-Russian campaign, which simply indicates that the irresponsibility of politicians, what they say aloud and without consequences, is a manifestation of a sharp drop in common standards. so that the gardens blossom on this score, but this is a general drop in the level of world leaders and the quality of political discourse, "the expert believes.

Link: https://ria.ru/world/20180214/1514577080.html