LATVIA: French President Jacques Chirac gets a birthday cake from Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga

Record ID: 498006

  • Title: LATVIA: French President Jacques Chirac gets a birthday cake from Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga
  • Date: 30th November 2006
  • Summary: (EU) RIGA, LATVIA (NOVEMBER 29, 2006) (REUTERS) SOLDIER WALKS OVER WITH CAKE/PRESENTS IT TO CHIRAC
  • Embargoed: 15th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Latvia
  • Country: Latvia
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVADBTMVMFNKWWPRUCN5KKNJ3K32
  • Story Text: French President Jacques Chirac got a birthday cake from his Latvian host but no surprise visit from Russian President Vladimir Putin to mark his 74th birthday on Wednesday (November 29).
    Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga had a Latvian soldier present the veteran French leader with a white-iced cake covered with red roses -- the colours of the Latvian flag -- when he arrived at what will almost certainly be his last NATO summit.
    Chirac kissed the president's hand as other leaders applauded, but he did not taste the cake.
    Putin caused a diplomatic frenzy on Tuesday (November 28) by offering to drop in on the former Soviet republic after the summit to congratulate Chirac, a political ally, on his birthday.
    Putin was not invited to the summit and the move was seen by some diplomats as a bid to upstage the U.S.-led defence alliance and cause mischief in the Baltic states, which no Russian leader has visited since they won independence from Moscow in 1991.
    Chirac said at a news conference he had been "neither the instigator nor the organiser" of the idea, and he would be receiving a telephone call from Putin instead.
    "President Putin kindly let me know, and I was much appreciated, that he wanted to congratulate me on my birthday and meet me for this occasion, which I repeated I very much appreciated. So Mrs Freiburger mentioned the possibility of having a dinner. I would gladly have gone. I repeat, I was neither the initator nor the organiser of this affair. And then the constraints of organising the summit, the time constraints and the constraints on the Russian side made it difficult to organise this dinner, and as a consequence it won't be happening. But I would like for it to be clear that this affair was an organisational problem between the NATO authorities and the Russian authorities. President Putin let me know that he would call me straight away after lunch to celebrate my birthday," Putin said at a news conference.
    Vike-Freiberga said she had given Chirac the cake as a consolation for having to spend his birthday at a NATO summit.
    "I had in fact been telling my good friend Chirac that since the day of the summit in Riga co-incides with his birthday, which I know he usually celebrates privately, that it was in a way a sort of sacrifice for him to be away from home on such a day, that we will try and compensate. I presented him with a birthday cake this morning and we will be seeing each other at lunch and I was quite ready to serve dinner to him as well, along with other friends he'd care to bring along," she said in a dig at Putin, a former KGB agent.
    But it was not to be. The Kremlin announced late on Tuesday that scheduling difficulties had made the trip impossible.
    The episode highlighted tensions between NATO's new central and east European members and their former Cold War master, but Vike-Freiberga remained the consummate diplomat.
    "We have no objections to anybody visiting Latvia and I certainly have done I assure you, I am a very hospitable person. And I'm told we actually serve a good table," she said.
    Chirac is expected to stand down next year after 12 years in office, although he has not officially ruled out running for an unprecedented third term.
    Vike-Freiberga said Chirac had given her a birthday present too since she turns 69 on Friday -- a book by a courtier of 16th century French king Francois I.
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