Kaljulaid Deviated From Estonia's Foreign Policy Course By Meeting With Putin - General

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th April, 2019) Estonia's former defense chief Riho Terras said on Thursday that Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid's meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin was a deviation from the country's foreign policy course.

Kaljulaid arrived in Moscow for a working visit earlier in the day. She took part in the opening of the renovated building of the Estonian embassy and met with Putin to discuss bilateral relations.

"Kaljulaid's initiative to organize a meeting with the Russian president was a deviation from [Estonia's] established foreign policy course," Terras told the Estonian ERR news outlet.

According to the former defense chief, Estonia needed to be careful in its communications with Russia.

He added that as a member of NATO and the European Union, Estonia had always followed a course of foreign policy that corresponded to the blocs' positions on security and third country relations.

The last time an Estonian leader visited Russia was 2011, when then-President Toomas Hendrik Ilves attended the consecration of St. John's Church in St. Petersburg, but he did not meet then-President Dmitry Medvedev on that occasion. The last summit of the two countries' leaders took place on the sidelines of the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk back in 2008.