Minister Pays for the Country's Occupation
// Russia has not issued a visa for the Estonian Foreign Minister
A big diplomatic scandal broke between Russia and Estonia yesterday. Moscow denied a visa for Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet who was invited to attend a roundtable in St. Petersburg on the Russian-EU cooperation. The official version says that, according to diplomatic procedures, Paet should not come to Russia without the Russian Foreign Ministry’s invitation. Yet, it looks like Moscow has thus responded to a recent demand of the Estonian authorities to apologize for “the Soviet occupation”.
The Russian presidential envoy to the North-Western Federal District and the presidential administration set up of the St. Petersburg roundtable. The assembly was supposed to focus on cross-border cooperation between Russia and the European Union at the example of the relations with Finland and Estonia. The cooperation of Russian, Estonian and Finnish frontier towns in border guarding, customs and migration control, tourism and cross-border trade was to become the forefront of the meeting. Representatives of these countries as well as diplomats from Poland and Lithuania received invitations to take part in the debate. Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, was among them but he did not make it to St. Petersburg as he was denied a visa at the eleventh hour.
Contradictory reports accounting for reasons for the denial of visa were circulated yesterday. The Russian Embassy to Estonia was the first to react shifting the blame on the minister who should have applied for the visa earlier, they pointed out. The second, amended theory of the Russian Foreign Ministry appeared later. News agencies quoted diplomatic sources as saying that, under diplomatic procedures, a guest of that rank must have an invitation from his Russian counterpart. So, since no one sent the invitation to Mr. Paet, he did not get the visa. The Russian foreign service presented its explanation last night. The ministry’s statement says that no one denied the Estonian minister a visa. However, such a high-profile visit must be agreed on and proper diplomatic procedures have to be followed. Organizers of the roundtable invited the Estonian foreign minister to take part in the event but they did not expect a high-ranking official to arrive, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “We gave our explanation to the Estonian party which was understood,” the Russian Foreign Ministry’s press service reported.
Estonia got hurt despite all the explanations. No wonder, as these discreet diplomatic issues are rarely made public. Even the mere fact that mass media got wind of the incident is like a slap in the face for Tallinn. “This is extremely disappointing. I would like to speak on important issues of the frontier cooperation with Russia at that meeting. I regret that I was deprived of this chance. It shows that Russia is not interested in relations with Estonia,” the Estonian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Ehtel Halliste quoted the minister as saying. She related her version of the conflict. It is the visa that matters, she insists, but an unprecedented decision to withdraw an invitation sent to Urmas Paet from the St. Petersburg Center for International Cooperation. The claims of the low level of the roundtable to be visited by the minister does not withstand any criticism, since the event was to see the Russian presidential advisor on the relations with the EU Sergey Yastrzhembsky, the presidential envoy to the North-Western Federal District Ilya Klebanko and St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko. The Baltic state also reminded its Eastern neighbor that the Russian Foreign Ministry had granted a visa for the Estonian Minister for Regions Jaan Ounapuu, but the official decided against going once he learnt about the insult his colleague had suffered.
It is odd that the invitation was made two weeks ago but the name of Urmas Paet is not mentioned in the two-week program of events. One of the organizers of the event, director general of the St. Petersburg Center for International cooperation, Slava Khodko told Kommersant that the center had sent an invitation to the name of the ministry welcoming a representative of the Estonian foreign service but no one expected the minister to come. We cannot rule out that Moscow deliberately stung Tallinn by barring the way for the Estonian official. Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said at the country’s Parliament on Monday that Estonia was waiting for Russian to apologize for “the Soviet occupation”. He also said that Estonia could not promise that it would not demand the compensation for damage inflicted “during the Soviet occupation” if Russia makes an apology. The Russian Foreign Ministry made no reaction to the speech then.
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When Russia Did Not Let Foreign Officials In
Russia has denied the entrance for official representatives of former Soviet states two times so far. These were the leaders of the states.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was deprived of a chance to visit Kaliningrad, Lipetsk and Yaroslavl Regions in 1997 following the arrest of Russian TV journalists Pavel Sheremet and Dmitry Zavadsky in Belarus on July 27 who charged with illegal crossing of the border. The Belarusian president had to cancel his visit to Kaliningrad Region on August 1 at the request of the region’s governor Leonid Gorbenko. On September 6, Mr. Lukashenko visited Moscow where the Russian authorities urged him to release the journalists as soon as possible, which in fact did not happen. So, on October 2, 1997, Alexander Lukashenko was unable to flight to Yaroslavl and Lipetsk since Russia had refused to admit the plane of the Belarusian president. “Let him first set Sheremet free,” then President Boris Yeltsin told the press in Nizhny Novgorod. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry sent a note to the Russian foreign service. Pavel Sheremet was released on October 8, 1997.
In April 2002, Russian barred the way for Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Icelandic President Olafur Grimsson was then on a visit in Russia meeting Novgorod Region Governor Mikhal Prusak. The Icelandic leader, supported by Mikhail Prusak, also invited Ms. Vike-Freiberga to come. The Russian Foreign Ministry, though, cancelled the visit of the Latvian president claiming that heads of Russian regions are not eligible to personally invite leaders of foreign states. Vaira Vike-Freiberga related the story to the Latvian press only this January.
Vladimir Solovyev; Alexander Shegedin, Tallinn; Mikhail Shevchyuk, St. Petersburg
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 11, 2005
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