ST PETERSBURG, Russia - President Vladimir Putin dismissed a report on Friday that he had cancelled a visit to a St Petersburg museum with Chancellor Angela Merkel where she was due to refer to German art seized by the Soviets in the wake of World War Two.
Putin told a news conference there was a scheduling uncertainty earlier on Friday but the issue was resolved and he would visit the exhibition “The Bronze Age of Europe: Europe Without Borders” at the Hermitage museum with Merkel.
“We have cancelled nothing,” Putin said when asked by a German reporter about the reports that the museum visit had been cancelled.
“We were taking into account whether we will have enough time for the visit. Now that we have checked the timing with the chancellor we understood we have time for the press conference, the meeting with business groups, and we can make it to the Hermitage.”
Earlier it had looked as if Merkel's trip to Russia to meet Putin was going to be overshadowed by a spat about the museum event when a German government spokesman in Berlin, Georg Streiter, said Russia had called off the event, arguing that “it was impossible for the host to find the time”.
“Uproar about looted art”, “Putin is a miserable diplomat” and “Looted art scandal overshadows Russia trip”, wrote Germany's incensed media, calling it a sign of deteriorating relations between the two countries.
Merkel was in Russia to address an economic forum in St Petersburg hosted by Putin and was going to join him opening the exhibition at the Hermitage museum in the evening.
But Streiter said Russia had called off the event. Asked what Merkel had planned to say when she inaugurated the show, Streiter said: “She would perhaps have once more referred to the German position on the issue of looted art.”
According to Berlin's Humboldt University, the Soviets plundered more than a million books and thousands of works of art at the end of the World War Two. Many pieces have still not been traced.
The exhibition is expected to include items carried off by the Soviet Union as war reparations that Germany would now like back. It is a touchy issue in both countries. The opening “would have been a lovely occasion to highlight our close cultural cooperation”, Streiter said.
Putin said: “I think this is a very sensitive question for civil societies in both countries... So if we want any progress, we should not blow the problem out of proportion but seek ways to solve it. Probably we should not start a discussion now because people will appear on the Russian side who would evaluate the damage done to our art during World War Two.”
The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
Tension between Berlin and Moscow was apparent when Putin visited the Hanover trade fair in April.
Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, criticised Russian government pressure on foreign-funded non-governmental organisations, saying: “A lively civil society can only emerge when individuals can operate without fear or worry, of course on the basis of law”.
Her foreign minister, the openly gay Guido Westerwelle, has also protested about a new law against homosexual “propaganda”.
But Germany has to keep up good ties with Russia because of its dependency on Russian natural gas. Merkel says maintaining a dialogue is the best way to improve civil rights in Russia. - Reuters