Prague: Czech President Vaclav Klaus said today that he would not attend the Olympic Games in Beijing, following criticism that he has not done enough to protest China's crackdown in Tibet.

But Klaus who has previously expressed concern over the situation in Tibet played down the significance of his decision, which he said was extremely unlikely to weigh heavily on the Beijing government.

"I am not sure that the absence of a politician from the Olympic Games opening ceremony will serve as a warning. This applies even more so for a politician from a country that has 130 times fewer inhabitants," he said.

"Those who decided in the 1990s to award the games to China cannot be surprised today that China is such as it is," he noted, in a statement published on his personal website, www.klaus.cz.

Klaus was the third Czech politician to announce his decision not to go to Beijing, following in the path of Prague s Mayor Pavel Bem and the country's sports and education minister, Ondrej Liska.

Source : PTI