Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De gucht of Belgium

In Brussels, a spokesman for De Gucht said Saturday the Belgian government had not been officially notified of Kinshasa's decision, and would await this before responding.
Speaking on Belgian television, Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht had said that since Belgium provided DR Congo with funds of some 200 million euros (315 million dollars) annually, it had a "moral obligation" to respond to events there.
But on May 25 de Gucht said he was sticking to what he had said the week before.
bron=RSSVolgens De Gucht is het niet aan Ecuador om te protesteren.
De Gucht had said earlier December that an EU peacekeeping force for DR Congo would be unlikely as no one country was prepared to lead such a mission.
De Gucht said an EU mission would need up to 3,000 heavily-armed soldiers, which would fill in immediate shortages.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said before the discussions there was an urgent need for bridging mission of 2,500-3,000 troops.
De Gucht was elected to the Federal Parliament during the general elections on 18 May 2003.
Although elected to the Flemish Parliament and European Parliament in the elections of June 2004 he decided to take up neither seat and since July 18, Karel De Gucht is the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In June 2005, De Gucht was part of a minor diplomatic riot between Belgium and the Netherlands, because he referred to the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende as "a mix between Harry Potter and a rigid bourgeois without charisma" in an interview with the popular Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
For the year 2006, De Gucht was the Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
De Gucht has ordered the ambassadors to take “informal” and “discrete” initiatives, which are to “result in positive radio and television broadcasts or newspaper articles.
BioThe Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, De Gucht has served as a member of the Belgian Parliament, a member of the European Parliament and holds a Master at Law degree from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
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Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht accepts a parting gift from ASPIRE’s Head of Finance Soren HvilshojAs an established ‘must see’ landmark on Doha’s rapidly changing skyline, ASPIRE continues to attract legions of visitors both local and international.
After meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moallem, on Tuesday, de Gucht said he was "disappointed" that Syria would not surrender its nationals to a mixed tribunal being set up to try suspects in Rafik Hariri's assassination.
Belgium’s foreign minister Karel De Gucht says Hamas must renounce violence if it is to participate in the upcoming Palestinian elections.
clashes have displaced some 250,000.
Belgium's Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht said in Brussels today that his country's 2006 presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sees "openings" in Europe's so-called frozen conflicts.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht said this applies in particular to the so-called frozen conflicts in Moldova and the Caucasus.
Addressing Transdniester, De Gucht said that it is not obvious how progress can be made.
De Gucht said Belgium will try to avoid what he called theoretical debates on Russia's so-called Istanbul commitments.
De Gucht said Russian troops would need to leave in several stages.
De Gucht said he has had extensive contacts with his Russian colleagues, as well as with the Romanian and Ukrainian authorities.
De Gucht said today that for the first time in years, there are signs of an opening between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the dispute surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.
De Gucht said he will visit the region on 24-26 January to prepare ground for a meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in February.
De Gucht said that once consensus is reached, the OSCE is prepared to send a force of observers, or even peacekeepers to the region.
De Gucht said participants for such missions would not be hard to find, as the OSCE has been preparing its involvement for a very long time.
De Gucht said he also sees some positive signs in South Ossetia, which won de facto independence from Georgia in the early 1990s: Yes, I think that there are serious prospects of coming to a solution for the problem and in that case we would also be willing to organize a donor conference for South Ossetia in the course of our presidency.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's chairman-in-office, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, is in Prague for the OSCE's 14th Economic Forum on May 22-23.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht is the latest of a string of Western officials to resume ties with the Palestinian cabinet, reconfigured last week to add moderate Fatah and independent ministers to what had been an exclusively Islamic militant Hamas lineup.
De Gucht met Wednesday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem.
to speak he said of Darfur, of Kosovo and the Congo.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht is OSCE's Chairman-in-Office in 2006.
Minister De Gucht has decided to free up 240,000 euro for a UNICEF project designed to provide drinking water and healthcare equipment for 25,000 people.
Karel De Gucht speaks to RFE/RL (RFE/RL)The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's chairman in office, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, is in Prague for the OSCE's 14th Economic Forum on May 22-23.
De Gucht was speaking at a ceremony marking the opening of the Belgium Embassy in Al Dafna area in Doha yesterday in the presence of H E Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi, Assistant Foreign Minister for Follow-up Affairs.
De Gucht has pointed out, the OSCE is currently working in the area of conflict prevention and crisis management.
De Gucht is here representing both Brussels, the capital of the European Union, and Vienna, which is certainly the secret capital of Europe in its broadest sense, which includes America and Central Asia.
But the Belgian situation is not unique, De Gucht says in the memo, noting that Austria and the Netherlands had also known difficulties in forming governments, and saying that opinion polls were "fleeting.
Like the rest of Premier Guy Verhofstadt's outgoing Cabinet, De Gucht has stayed on in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed.
Beirut & Damascus- Belgian foreign minister Karel de Gucht expressed his "disappointment" Tuesday at Syria's refusal to transfer any Syrian suspect to an international tribunal investigating the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
At a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart, de Gucht said he was told by Syrian officials that even if there was evidence of involvement of a Syrian national in the Hariri assassination, this was a matter for a Syrian court, not an international tribunal.