Joint Statement of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic

Building on the long friendship between our two countries, we met today to discuss how to strengthen and deepen our bilateral relationship and to examine how we can increase our cooperation in promoting common ideals and interests.  The United States and the Czech Republic are NATO allies and partners in numerous joint endeavors in Europe and around the world.  We agreed to further develop our relations in three main areas: security cooperation; economic and commercial ties, including civil nuclear energy cooperation; and cooperation in the promotion of democracy, open government and human rights around the world.  Toward that end, we identified the following goals:

• Negotiate and sign a reciprocal defense procurement agreement
• Establish a center for civil nuclear cooperation
• Cooperate in the implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative, which could lead to the establishment of an open government and democracy center in Prague

We discussed other important topics, including the global economic situation and energy security.  We confirmed our support for safe and secure nuclear power, and agreed that nuclear power is not only important for ensuring energy security, but also for reaching our goals on reducing carbon emissions.  We reviewed our cooperation in eastern Afghanistan, where our troops operate closely together in one of the most challenging areas of the country.  We agreed that it will be important to maintain sufficient forces and funding during the transition to ensure that the Afghan National Security Forces are in a position to assume lead security responsibility in 2014.

We also reviewed plans for the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago, where we share the belief that the Atlantic Alliance needs to adapt to meet the security challenges of the 21st century.  We agreed that we need to be more efficient in the use of our defense resources.  Finally, we discussed our cooperation in supporting the transition in the Middle East and North Africa and in promoting democracy, open government and human rights around the world.  We agreed that the Czech experience offers a powerful and compelling example to others struggling to build new democracies of how to conduct a peaceful and inclusive transition to a free and democratic society.