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No Olympic cake for Dutch and Danish diplomats: neither country is sending a delegation to Beijing
Photo: FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS
Two other European countries are not allowing diplomats to travel to the Winter Olympics in China.
The Netherlands and Denmark will not send a government delegation to Beijing.
A spokesman for the Dutch Foreign Ministry told the ANP news agency in The Hague on Friday.
The cabinet decided that.
The reason given by the spokesman was that due to the corona measures, no spectators from the country were allowed either.
Strict corona measures and precarious human rights situation
Another reason is that one cannot address the human rights situation.
Due to the Corona measures, there is “only limited space for a substantive program and for bilateral contacts with the host country, where the great concerns of the Netherlands about the human rights situation can be discussed in an appropriate manner,” ANP quotes the spokesman as saying.
King Willem-Alexander had previously announced that he would not be traveling to China.
He cited the corona pandemic as the reason.
Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod had clearer words: "It's no secret that we are very concerned about the human rights situation in China," he was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.
No vote in the EU yet
Other EU member states will also not have an official delegation in China.
Voting on this issue is still ongoing within the European Union, said Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on Thursday in Berlin, and that this process is not yet complete in every respect.
The US government had declared that it would boycott the games diplomatically because of the human rights situation.
Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand joined.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on the other hand, will travel to Beijing for the opening ceremony on February 4th.
col/dpa