But Klaus' spokesman Petr Hajek told AFP later on Tuesday the president's comments on global warming had been taken out of context and referred to soemthing else entirely.

Global warming caused by people is a senseless fiction," the paper quoted Klaus as saying during a seminar on ecological myths and truths in the Czech Republic's second city, Brno.

He also attacked the suggestion made at the conference by Czech Green Party leader Martin Bursik, that ice on the Alps and Himalayas was retreating.

"We could expect it to be the other way around and that if the ocean becomes warmer then it would snow more on the Antarctic and the ice mass would grow," Klaus retorted, according to the paper.

The Czech Republic, like other members of the EU, is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions believed to cause global warming.

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