Kalistan

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FM Harney to travel to Xsampa and Kundrati in February
"We are ready to open Embassy and resume cultural exchange" said FM Harney
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
November 30, 5693


Sir Thomas Harney delivers Keynote at The Annual Banquet of the Council on International Affairs

"We are ready to open Embassy in Metz-Leonid and resume cultural exchange," declared Her Imperial Majesty's Foreign Minister, Sir Thomas Harney, KC, before the Annual Banquet of the Council on International Affairs, the Kaliburg based foreign policy think tank that regularly advises the Foreign Ministry. He was present to give the Keynote speech and announce that Kalistan was ready to open its Embassy in Xsampa, an effort that has been in the works for nearly three years. "We have secured a compound in the Xsampan capital of Metz-Leonid and immediately moved our consulate into that building while the rest of the offices are set up. Her Highness, the Princess Regent will announce an ambassador to Xsampa within the next two months, and then they will fly to the Dovani capital to present formal credentials as Ambassador Plenipotential and Extraordinaire to begin full diplomatic operations."

The Foreign Minister said that good foreign relations are important to Kalistan. "We have been trying to avoid playing the relative power game that so many past Kalistani monarchs have played, and which is the common mode throughout the world. One nation gets some advantage, their rivals feel they also need to do that to maintain the same level of relative power. We are watching developments across the globe which we are ourselves powerless to stop, but this doesn't mean we should let others drive our policy for us and distract us from our own goals, which are to reach out and find partners that will help us enhance our own defense and position in the world."

The Foreign Minister noted that the Embassy in Xsampa will allow Kalistan to have a direct line with the rising Dovani power. "Xsampa is perhaps the most important nation on the Dovani Continent at the moment, and certainly so from Kalistan's perspective. Having a direct line to the Xsampan government will make it much easier for coordinate things like direct sales of our goods and services and purchases of theirs, as well as the long sought after cultural exchanges which we have been looking forward to. I know that there is quite a lot of curiosity about Xsampa within Imperial circles, and the Regent having been there as a younger woman, also some experience. The Xsampan government, Her Imperial Majesty believes, maintains the correct ideological orientation in opposition of liberalism, and on these grounds we find a lot of commonality. Xsampa is a natural ally and partner, despite their communist ways. They are certainly someone Her Imperial Majesty's government should and wishes to work with."

The Foreign Minister said the Embassy will contain the office of the Ambassador, a political and an economics section, a defense attaché, and an intelligence section that will help the ambassador make sense of things in the country and in the region. "We will need to negotiate the normal stuff, such as extraterritoriality of Embassy grounds and such," said the Foreign Minister, "and we can expect that Xsampans will want reciprocity for their own embassy here in Kalibrug, which of course, we will be amenable to. But a full service Ambassadorial post there in Xsampa will open that part of the world up to Kalistani participation and Anantonese Cooperation."

Sir Harney, while speaking about the new opportunities opening in Xsampa, also said a few words concerning Kundrati, as the example of a new bridge Kalistan has been attempting to build. "We would like to move forward with closer relations with the central Artanian nation and our old nemeses, but we have yet to ascertain the level of interest of this move from the Kundratis. We have opened the Consulate in Jildrati City on Etxea and have invested pretty heavily in their gold industry which has been yielding dividends for Kalistani investors, but in all honesty, we have not heard from the Kundrati government in just about 8 years since our Monarchs were taken from us in a plane crash, and this is rather dismaying. None the less, we keep trying."

Following the installation of the Ambassador in Xsampa, the Foreign Minister said he has been ordered to fly on to Etxea and then to Kasaema to see if the Kundrati Government is still interested in working on improving relations with Kalistan, or if they are satisfied with the Empire's maintained presence in Etxea. "Either way," he said, "I hope to resolve the mystery so I may make a report to the Chancellor."

Bilateral partnerships are the keystone to Kalistan's Diplomatic posture at the moment, and the Foreign Minister extolled their virtue. "Kalistan has found alliances in nations as diverse as Valruzia and Hutori, and growing partnerships in places like Istalia and Deltaria over specific issues. Other nations, sadly will never want anything to do with Kalistan. This is to be expected: There is nothing they will gain from even talking to Kalistan. But since national interests are the name of the game, even for those so-called 'liberal' nations who facetiously try to pretend that it isn't, we don't expect those who don't think they can gain anything from talking with Kalistan to try. And we don't fault them for that. In our case, working one on one, without the need of some intervening institution on the international stage, is yielding us the kind of relationships we want, ones based on mutual respect and shared benefit. Where neither side is a pawn in some great global game, but where the overlap in interest can be negotiated in good faith. Kalistan is doing things right, and we encourage other nations to follow our example in the foreign policy sphere."

The Foreign Minister received polite applause from the mostly academic and professional crowd. Many said later that they appreciated his informality and his down to earth attitude, but some, especially those associated with a hard nationalist viewpoint, said they found him a but too optimistic and conciliatory for their tastes, and would prefer someone who took a stronger stance against Kalistan's global rivals.

@TheNational