Valkenburg, 03/09/2004 (Agence Europe) - The summit of European Union foreign ministers opened at Chateau Sint Gerlach on Friday 3 September without the presence of French foreign minister Michel Barnier, who was still in Amman hoping for the two French journalists taken hostage in Iraq to be released. The ministers' thoughts obviously went out to these two hostages and the hundreds of hostages in a school in North Ossetia, and they condemned all forms of terrorism as soon as they arrived at the Gymnich style meeting. The statements were already out of date, however, since there were television reports showing the first images of the storming of the school by elite Russian forces.
At a brief press conference shortly after 15: 00 hrs, the acting President of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, Bernard Bot, regretted the deep human tragedy, saying it was with very great sorrow that they had learned that many of the hostages had been killed and many others injured, said the Dutch foreign minister, adding that the EU condemned all forms of terrorism. He highlighted the need to avoid similar tragedies. Asked about the Russian government's methods, Bot said it was difficult to say at a distance whether the decision had been the right one. Admitting that there were more than a hundred corpses, he said he didn't know the exact number, but repeated his condolences for the Russian people, repeating that efforts had to be stepped up to fight terrorism in the world.
Speaking to reporters after the tragic outcome of the crisis, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini regretted the tragic results, but said he understood the difficult position of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Before the storming of the school, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters that the EU could not fail to manifest its full solidarity with the Russian authorities. His German counterpart Joschka Fischer said that nothing could justify taking children and their mothers prisoner, adding that the crisis in Chechnya could only be solved politically.