Dutch Foreign Minster lied on meeting Putin

This video from the USA says about itself:

US-NATO Border Confrontation with Russia Risks Nuclear War and Loss of European Partners

17 July 2016

Michael Hudson says that the US-led confrontational approach of NATO with Russia is driving European countries to consider disbanding or leaving the military alliance due to increased security risks.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Zijlstra admits: I lied about meeting Putin

Minister Halbe Zijlstra of Foreign Affairs lied about a meeting with the Russian president Putin in 2006. He admits this in an interview with the Volkskrant daily. For example, contrary to his earlier claims, the VVD party member was not at a meeting with the Russian president in his country house.

The then VVD parliamentary caucus leader said in a speech in 2016 that he had heard Putin himself talk about ‘Greater Russia’. “I was an employee, I was tucked away in the back of the room where it was taking place, but I could hear very well what Vladimir Putin’s answer was to the question what he meant with Greater Russia”, said Zijlstra during the VVD party congress.

“Because Greater Russia is what he wants to go back to, and his answer was: that is Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic States, and Kazakhstan was nice to have.”

Zijlstra, as a Shell employee, together with Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer and Putin, was said to have been in the country house. Research by de Volkskrant shows that Zijlstra’s colleagues had serious doubts about the truthfulness of the meeting with Putin.

The minister says about his statements: “It was not wise, I should have done it differently.” …

NOS political reporter Lars Geerts says that this issue is incredibly difficult for the position of Zijlstra. The position of the Netherlands in relation to Russia is also becoming weak. “Credibility is the only thing you actually have in the diplomatic world and that is now being questioned,” says Geerts. “The Russians will also say in the discussion about fake news: look who’s talking.”