Poland's top diplomat invents country, pays price on Twitter

WARSAW, Poland -- The Polish foreign minister has been mocked on Twitter for saying he had a meeting with the representative of a nonexistent country as part of Poland’s bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Witold Waszczykowski was in New York this week to lobby for a seat on the council from 2018-19. He told reporters while there on Tuesday that he had meetings with officials from nearly 20 countries, including some Caribbean nations “for the first time in the history of our diplomacy. For example with countries such as Belize or San Escobar.”

There is no country called San Escobar. Ministry spokeswoman Joanna Wajda said Waszczykowski had simply made a slip of the tongue and had in mind Saint Kitts and Nevis, a two-island Caribbean country known in Spanish as San Cristobal y Nieves.

That hasn’t stopped an eruption of jokes under the hashtag #SanEscobar, including an invented flag and a slew of fake news about the fictional place.

The fictional nation quickly gained its own Twitter account, under the full name of the “Popular Democratic Republic of San Escobar.” 

The second tweet posted to the account said San Escobar “fully supports Poland’s candidacy to the Security Council.”