Mr. Halbe Zijlstra, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of the Netherlands. Photography by Nia Palli.
By Anton Lutter.
Even before the debate in the Tweede Kamer (parliament) about his so-called meeting with President Putin 2006, Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Halbe Zijlstra stepped down.
In an emotional declaration during a special session in parliament Mr. Zijlstra – with Prime Minister, Mark Rutte sitting next to him – acknowledged he made a big mistake. A mistake revealed by the newspaper the Volkskrant last Monday.
During a party congress of the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) in May 2016, Zijlstra claimed he was at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in 2006. President Putin supposed to have said that he wanted a “Greater Russia” suggestion expansive policies. “Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic States, and oh yes, Kazakhstan was ‘nice to have’,” Zijlstra said during the Congress, citing the Russian president. Royal Dutch Shell CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer, who had met Putin several times said that Putin was talking in the historical sense, had told this story to Zijlstra in 2014.
After the story broke, and even when he acknowledged he never was present at the meeting, the Prime Minister and government parties still supported him. His position became untenable after a second article in the Volkskrant claimed that even the remarks attributed to Mr. Putin were not true. Tuesday Zijlstra concluded that “There is too much doubt about my functioning as Dutch Foreign Minister”.
Acting as Minister of Foreign Affairs will be Mrs. Sigrid Kaag the current Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation until a successor is found.
