Zeman calls for Czech troops to continue in Sinai mission

President Milos Zeman urged Defence Minister Lubomir Metnar not to withdraw Czech soldiers from the Sinai observer mission along the Egyptian-Israeli border at a recent meeting of top elected officials on foreign policy, daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) writes today. "The president explained that he cared a lot for the Sinai mission and that he would consider it very bad if we left this region," one of the meeting participants, who requested anonymity, told HN. However, the Defence Ministry says the president's intervention did not influence its final decision to continue the mission.