Diplomatic musical
chairs: Russian protocol officials found a way to put
a good distance between
Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at the G20
Summit now proceeding in St.
Petersburg: English rather than Russian.
G20 Chairs 'Linguistically Rearranged' to Keep Putin and Obama
Apart (Izvestia, Russia)
"If there had been 'Russian seating,' Putin and Obama would
have been sitting practically next to one another - separated only by
Saudi Arabia King Abdullah, who also supports military operations against the
Assad regime by the U.S. and its allies. So in the end, organizers settled on
'English seating.' This way, the Russian and U.S. leaders were separated by
five heads of state: Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the
United Kingdom."
By Pyotr Kozlov, Anastasia Kashevarova and Elena Teslova
To ease
discomfort for the heads of State, protocol officials have opted to use the
English alphabet in favor of Russian to decide the G20 seating arrangements.
Due
to deteriorating relations between Russia and the United States over the Syrian
issue and the scandal involving U.S. intelligence informant Edward Snowden, the
St. Petersburg “Big 20” Summit organizing committee has seated Vladimir Putin
and Barack Obama on opposite sides of the table.
G20
organizers told Izvestia
that from the outset, they had originally been looking at two seating
arrangements for the heads of state: one that corresponded to the English
alphabet, and one following the Russian. Normally, the matter is decided
according to the alphabet of the country organizing the summit. Thus, if there
had been “Russian seating,” Putin and Obama would have been sitting practically
next to one another - separated only by Saudi Arabia King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who also supports military operations against
the Assad regime by the U.S. and its allies. So in the end, organizers settled
on “English seating.” This way, the Russian and U.S. leaders were separated by
five heads of state: Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the
United Kingdom.
“Seating
at the G20 will be according to the English alphabet,” Russian press secretary
Dmitri Peskov confirmed to Izvestia.
The
seating of state leaders in alphabetical order is traditional for such events.
Vladimir Shevchenko, head of protocol for both USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev
and Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, says seating arrangements may
change from one forum to the next because country names are spelled differently
in different languages. For instance, "Germany" is written "Германия"
(Germania) in Russian, and "Allemagne" in
French.
Deputy
Finance Minister Sergei Storchak recalled in a
conversation with Izvestia
that at the 2012 G20 in Mexico, Putin and Obama were neighbors at the meeting
table, and availed themselves of the opportunity to repeatedly talk to each
other in English.
At
the same time, people who spoke with Izvestia emphasized that the issue of seating arrangements
for leaders at international forums is always somewhat political, and takes
into account "personal chemistry." Seating order can also be changed
to reflect a country’s position. So the decision to seat Obama further from Putin
was logical, says Dmitri Suslov, deputy director of
the Center for Comprehensive European and
International Studies at the Higher School of Economics in St Petersburg.
Nevertheless, he believes a meeting between the two presidents, even if
"on the hoof," in necessary and is likely to happen. Given the strong
probability of a strike on Syria, they will need to agree on "modalities
of cooperation" in these conditions.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
“It
is no secret that Obama and Putin have no great affinity for one another. In
the current atmosphere of controversy over Syria, it would not be too pleasant
for either of them to be constantly seated together," Suslov
says. “At the same time, both leaders are pragmatists. And over recent years,
relations have moved along a logical path of selective pragmatic cooperation.
As such, I do not rule out the possibility that a brief encounter between the
leaders might be held.”
Nikolai Zlobin,
president of Washington's Center on Global Interests, believes that even if
even a brief encounter doesn't take place, in any event, it will likely occur
far from the camera lens.
“The
protocol people may arrange things so that at some point, world media can film
Putin and Obama side by said. But does Putin want to sit next to Obama? Does
Putin want such photographs appearing in the media?,” Zlobin
wonders aloud.
In
response to a question from Izvestia on the possibility of introducing changes to the
official agenda on the day of the summit, one presidential administration
official answered "no," explaining that this had all been agreed to
almost a year ago, and all final decisions had been “confirmed down to the last
detail.”
All
experts questioned by Izvestia
agreed that in parallel with the official themes of the summit, the issue of
Syria would be the main topic at all multilateral and bilateral meetings
between heads of state and other heads of delegations.
It
was earlier reported that on the margins of the G20, Vladimir Putin is
scheduled to meet with the leaders of China, Spain, Italy, Japan, and the prime
ministers of Great Britain and Turkey. A separate meeting with the U.S. leader
has not been scheduled, but it is nevertheless possible that the two would talk
on the sidelines of the summit, for which “they will have plenty of
opportunity,” as presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said
on August 30.
