Prague  - Czech President Vaclav Klaus urged Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to disavow a controversial artwork marking country's EU presidency in Brussels, which sparked a diplomatic row with Bulgaria and irritated Slovakia.

In a January 14 letter published Monday on the website of the Czech weekly business magazine Euro, Klaus called on Topolanek to join him in an apology to Bulgarian leaders.

"In no case do I consider this sculpture funny or well-done. Its only ambition is to shock and hoax," Klaus said in a letter to his Bulgarian counterpart Georgi Parvanov, which is also posted on the Euro website.

The president has so far stayed clear of publicly thrashing the artwork titled Entropa, which also mocks him.

The eight-tonne piece, which pokes fun at national sore points and stereotypes, resembles a plastic scale model kit of an EU map. It is installed at a Brussels building where EU summits take place.

Statements by Klaus, a fierce EU critic and global warming doubter, run on a display on the piece that represents the Czech Republic. The quotes are introduced by ironic lines such as "our greatest philosopher."

Czechs are yet to meet their promise to remove the segment, which portrays Bulgaria, a country once under Ottoman rule, as a psychedelic Turkish squat toilet. Slovakia had also protested for being depicted as a Hungarian salami but was satisfied with an apology.

The work was concocted by Czech conceptual artist David Cerny and his friends. Cerny, who made his name through provocation, tricked the government in Prague into believing that Entropa was a collaboration by artists representing all 27 member states. dpa