Czech envoy dies in blast as Prague vows to fight evil

Prague: Ivo Zdarek was a month into his new posting as Czech ambassador to Pakistan. He was staying temporarily in the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad when it was hit by the massive truck-bomb that killed him and at least 52 others.

The Czech Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its websiteon Sun that Zdarek, 47, had been in the hotel at the moment of the blast.

It described him as an expert on Chinese studies who arrived in Islamabad only in August after completing his four-year mission as ambassador in Vietnam. He was married with two sons but was staying without his family at the Marriott.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg called Saturday's attack an attempt to destabilise Pakistan after presidential elections there and welcomed the resolve of the Pakistani government to continue in the fight against terrorism, the CTK news agency reported.

"[Zdarek's] death shows that the terrorists are trying to hit us at the most sensitive spots," Schwarz-enberg said in a statement e-mailed from the United Nations in New York.

"Ambassador Zdarek bravely fulfilled all his duties under the most difficult and risky conditions."

Schwarzenberg said that his death makes it obligatory for the country to "face the evil and fight with it".

The Czech Republic is an ally of the US in Afghani-stan, and the government plans to increase the number of troops in Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and US-led missions there to 700 next year.

Expert on China

Born November 6, 1960, in the northern Czech town of Trutnov, Zdarek studied diplomacy in Moscow, specialising in Chinese studies and at the Faculty of Law in Prague in the 1980s.

He moved into the position of deputy consul in at the Czech Consulate General in China's city of Shanghai in 1991, then took charge of the office the following year.

Later that year, he moved the Czech Embassy in Beijing as its third secretary.

In 1993, he underwent a diplomatic training program at Hoover Institution's of Stanford University in the United States, the ministry said.