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“I see no other option today than to hand in my resignation to his majesty the King," a tearful Zijlstra told MPs in a hastily called session of parliament.”...Image: King Willem-Alexander of Kingdom of the Netherlands]…2/14/2018, “Dutch foreign minister quits after lying about Putin meeting,” sbs.com.au
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2/12/2018, “Dutch Minister admits lying about meeting Russian president Putin," 9:14
“Minister Halbe Zijlstra of Foreign Affairs admitted that he lied about meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2006. While speaking at a VVD conference in 2016, Zijlstra said that he heard Putin speaking about ‘Great Russia’ in 2006.
Now he says that he wasn’t there himself, but an anonymous source.
He wanted to protect the identity of his source by saying he was there himself, he told the Volkskrant.
At the VVD conference in 2016, Zijlstra said that he was in Putin’s home in 2006. Putin spoke about
‘Great Russia’, and when asked what he meant with that term, he responded: “Russia,
Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic States. And oh yes, Kazakhstan was ‘nice to have’,” Zijlstra said.
“And he did not leave it at words.”
Now Zijlstra says that a source told him about these statements.
“The geopolitical meaning of those words was and is great. I therefore thought it was politically important to make these statements public. The source that told me about Putin’s quotation confirmed the events to the Volkskrant, and
appreciates the fact that I guarantee anonymity.”
Opposition party PVV wants to debate this lie with the Minister as soon as possible. “Debate necessary with Minister of Foreign Affairs about his lie. Debate has to take place before his meeting with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs”, PVV parliamentarian Raymond de Roon said on Twitter.
Zijlstra is meeting with is Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday, according to newspaper AD.”
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Added: A second lie: Z also lied about what former Shell CEO told him about 2006 meeting with Putin. Among other things, Z falsely made it sound like Shell CEO said Putin was threatening military action in 2006, ie, “And he did not leave it at words.” The #1 result of such statements is to stab US taxpayers in the back. It will be seized on to force us to pay for more weapons. Shell CEO “Van der Veer never literally said that Putin is aiming for a Great Russia again."…
Not only was he not at the meeting, but he also
misinterpreted Putin’s statements given to him by his source who was there,
the source–former Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer told the Volkskrant….
Now it seems that Zijlstra’s statements about what Putin said at that meeting,
In an email to the Volkskrant Van der Veer confirmed that he spoke with Zijlstra about Putin, but…
Van der Veer never literally said that Putin is aiming for a Great Russia again….
The former Shell CEO [Van der Veer] adds, the
“interpretation in an aggressive sense”
was “not from me nor my use of words”.
Van der Veer is also
confused about Zijlstra’s quote about Kazakhstan.
“I do not remember how I told Zijlstra about the specific countries at the time,
but the term ‘nice to have’ is not something I’d say”, he said in the email.”…
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Added: “I see no other option today than to hand in my resignation to his majesty the King,” a tearful Zijlstra told MPs in a hastily called session of parliament.”
2/14/2018, “Dutch foreign minister quits after lying about Putin meeting,” sbs.com.au
“Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra admitted to fabricating a story about attending a meeting in 2006 at which he said Russian President Vladimir Putin had outlined a strategy for building a greater Russia.”
[Image] “Halbe Zijlstra stepped down after admitting to lying about having attended a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Source: Olaf Kraak/EPA”
“New Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra resigned Tuesday, after admitting he had lied about his presence at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I see no other option today than to hand in my resignation to his majesty the King,” a tearful Zijlstra told MPs in a hastily called session of parliament.
“This is by far the biggest mistake I have made in my career,” he admitted to Dutch politicians in the lower house of parliament, watched by Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Zijlstra is a member of Rutte’s Liberal VVD party, and his resignation is the first major scandal to shake the fragile four-party coalition cobbled together after record talks last year.
As he left the chamber he was given a hug by Rutte, who then came under fire from other MPs about how long he had known about his minister’s deception….
“I wanted to tell this story convincingly without revealing my source, it was obviously the wrong choice. I should not have done it. I am sorry.”
A former Shell contractor, Zijlstra had told members of his Liberal VVD party in 2016 that during the meeting Putin allegedly spoke about his definition of a “Greater Russia”.
The Russian embassy angrily waded into the scandal on Tuesday, accusing the Dutch of spreading “fake news”….
Trying to attribute to Russia “great-power ambitions and the desire to recreate ‘the Soviet Empire’ do not hold up,” the embassy added, saying such claims were “conceived in someone’s inflamed imagination”.
Zijlstra’s appointment in October [2017] as foreign minister had raised eyebrows because of his perceived lack of diplomatic credentials.
But the Volkskrant newspaper said “his spin doctors” had used the story of the Putin meeting “to ward off criticism about his lack of foreign experience”.”…
“I told an untruth, it was unacceptable,” he told reporters. Zijlstra, who is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow in two days’ time, said he had been “stupid” and regretted his behavior.
While election campaigning two years ago [2016], Zijlstra said that in 2006 he had been at Putin’s dacha when he heard the Kremlin leader speak of plans for a “greater Russia” which would include some of Russia’s neighbors.
“I was tucked away back in the room, but I could clearly hear Putin’s answer to the question about what he considered greater Russia,” Zijlstra told a gathering in 2016 of his People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, which heads the new Dutch government.
“He said this included Russia,
Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states, and, well,
Kazakhstan would be ‘nice to have’,”
he said in his speech, which was recorded on video.
But on Monday [Feb. 2018] he acknowledged he had never been at the meeting with Putin and had heard of the comments secondhand.
“I wasn’t present at the meeting in President Putin’s dacha,” the minister said in statement on Monday.
“The discussion did take place and someone who was there told me what President Putin said about greater Russia.”
Zijlstra said he was prepared to discuss the matter with parliament, which has the power to dismiss him. His admission led opposition parties to demand his resignation, but the governing parties stood by him.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Zijlstra had a made a “big mistake”, but remained a credible member of the government. In a scathing editorial, the prominent daily business newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad called on the minister to step down.
“Staying on would undermine the credibility of the Cabinet. Not only in criticizing Russia, but also in the campaign against fake news,” it wrote.”..
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[Image] “Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Halbe Zijlstra hugs Prime Minister Mark Rutte after he announced his resignation | Martijn Beekman/AFP via Getty Images”
“‘To not further impact the position, I see no other option than to submit my resignation,’ Halbe Zijlstra says.
“Zijlstra, a close ally of Rutte, previously served as parliamentary leader of the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) before he was appointed foreign minister in Rutte’s third government last October [2017].
Zijlstra said at a VVD party conference in 2016 that he
heard the Russian president [in 2006] talking about
plans to expand the country’s borders and create a “Great Russia” that would include
Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic countries and possibly Kazakhstan.
An employee of oil company Shell at the time [2006], Zijlstra had traveled to Russia with Jeroen van der Veer, then CEO of the company [Shell].
Van der Veer told de Volkskrant Tuesday that Putin’s words should have been interpreted
“in a historical context” and did not indicate a military intention to expand the country….
Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whom Zijlstra said was informed of the story some weeks ago, defended the foreign minister on Monday, saying he was still “credible”because the content of the story is “not up for discussion.”…
[Why not, Mr. Rutte? What evidence do you have to make this sensational claim about another country that could easily trigger billions in weapons sales?]
Zijlstra had been set to fly to Russia to meet his counterpart Sergey Lavrov this week.
Before Zijlstra’s resignation, the Russian foreign ministry released a statement Tuesday saying that Russian-Dutch relations have been overshadowed by “an unprecedented anti-Russia campaign launched by the Dutch media.””
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Added: On another topic, Dutch government secretly funded terrorist roups in Syria from 2015-2018, including Jabbat al-Shamiya, salafist jihadists, a ‘criminal organisation of terrorist intent’. This funding was not known to members of parliament:
9/11/2018, “Dutch funded ‘jihadist’ group in Syria, terror trial may now falter," Dutchnews.nl
“The Dutch government has been supporting an armed [Islamic terrorist] group in Syria which has been branded a terrorist organisation by the public prosecution department, current affairs show Nieuwsuur reported on Monday night.
The Netherlands provided uniforms and pick-up trucks to the group known as Jabbat al-Shamiya in 2017, the programme said. Next week, a Dutch jihadi faces court for being a member of the same group. The equipment was sent to the group as part of a secret programme providing ‘non-lethal’ assistance to 22 [Islamic terrorist] rebel groups in Syria from 2015 to the beginning of this year [2018].
According to the public prosecutor Jabbat al-Shamiya is ‘salafist and jihadistic’, ‘strives for the setting up of the caliphate’ and can be qualified as nothing else but a ‘criminal organisation of terrorist intent’. The fact that the government has supported the organisation in the past
could upset the court case, according to legal experts.
‘A court could easily say that it
would not convict someone for doing something which had been facilitated by the state,’ Geert-Jan Knops told broadcaster NOS. Michiel Pestman, who represents the man facing trial in three weeks, told NOS the Nieuwsuur claims undermine the public prosecution’s case.
The Netherlands has admitted funding Syrian [Islamic terrorist] rebel groups but has always maintained they were moderate. [In the US, so-called “moderate” terrorists include child beheaders.] However, this weekend foreign minister Stef Blok and trade minister Sigrid Kaag sent a briefing to MPs explaining that the Netherlands has stopped funding the Syrian [Islamic terrorists] opposition in the [so-called] civil war [funded by the US] against president Assad. The chance that [foreign-backed terrorist] rebel forces will be able to win the [so-called] civil war is, the ministers say, now ‘extremely limited’.
Dutch support for the [Islamic terrorist] rebels has ‘not had the desired effects’, the ministers said. The Netherlands had set aside €70m [US $76.5 million] to fund the [Islamic terrorist] opposition. Nieuwsuur says the letter was sent to MPs after it had confronted them with its findings. ‘These findings strengthen our conviction that the decision to stop the funding was the correct one,’ the foreign ministry said in a statement.
MPs said they were shocked by the Nieuwsuur broadcast and have called on ministers to explain how this could happen. Much of the information has been declared secret but MPs still want ministers to explain to parliament what has been done. ‘What appears to have happened is exactly what we were afraid of,’ said Christen Unie leader Gert-Jan Seegers. In 2015, the CU attempted to have the financial support to Syrian [terrorist] rebel groups stopped but failed to get sufficient support. Nieuwsuur later published more allegations, claiming that other groups funded by the Netherlands committed human rights violations and war crimes. The broadcaster said it bases its claims on interviews with some 100 ‘rebel leaders’ and people involved with the programme.”
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