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RIGA - Vladimir Putin never made it to Riga, but news that the Russian president was seeking to drop in after the Nato summit to wish French President Jacques Chirac a happy birthday sparked a diplomatic furore today.
Chirac's office said Putin had proposed calling on the president after the meeting of the US-led alliance to offer 74th birthday congratulations and have a three-way dinner with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
The trip, never officially confirmed by the Kremlin or the Latvian government, would have been a stark reminder of Nato's divisions, showcasing a Franco-Russian friendship forged in opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
But with the corridors of the Nato summit ringing with outrage at what many saw as an attempt to upstage the meeting, the Kremlin said Putin would "regretfully" not be coming.
Deputy Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed there had been contacts with France and Latvia to try to arrange a meeting but said: "Regretfully, given the impossibility of co-ordinating the working schedules of the three presidents this visit will not take place."
No Russian leader has set foot in any of the Baltic states since they became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991.
A senior Nato source said the Latvian president, who was twice denied a visa to visit Russia, had hesitated over granting a visa to the Russian leader.
Latvian Foreign Ministry spokesman Atis Lots told Reuters: "I can't comment on that because there is no confirmation that this visit was ever to take place. So I have no specific information on the visa issue."
But he added: "Why should we deny a visa for the Russian president? I don't think that's the case."
Dining with Putin in Riga would have been a final snub to Nato by a departing Chirac, widely expected to stand down next year after 12 years in office, the Nato source said.
The former communist central European countries that are now in the European Union and Nato view with deep suspicion French and German efforts to cut deals with Moscow over their heads.
The International Herald Tribune newspaper, citing senior Russian officials, first reported on Tuesday that Chirac was planning to invite Putin to join him in Riga for a private birthday celebration after the Nato summit.
The paper said Latvian authorities had not been informed.
But Chirac's office said: "President Putin expressed the wish to meet the President of the Republic to extend his best wishes as he has done with other heads of state and government.
"Since the President of the Republic is in Riga for the Nato summit, Russia proposed the idea of a three-way dinner at the end of the summit, which the President of Latvia, Mrs Vaira Vike-Freiberga, would host."
- REUTERS
