FRESH LIGHT has been thrown on the controversial September 1994 episode at Shannon airport when Russia's president at the time, the late Boris Yeltsin, failed to emerge from his official aircraft to meet taoiseach Albert Reynolds and other government ministers on the tarmac outside. DEAGLÁN De BRÉADÚN, Political Correspondent reports
The new information is revealed by Russia's ambassador to Ireland at the time, Nikolai Kozyrev, in an article published in the last few weeks in the English-language journal, International Affairs, published by the diplomatic academy of the ministry of foreign affairs in Moscow.
Mr Kozyrev, now chief researcher at the academy, where aspiring Russian diplomats receive training for their profession, discloses in his article that Mr Yeltsin made an effort to leave the aircraft to meet Mr Reynolds but was prevented from doing so by a member of his own entourage. He also confirms that Mr Reynolds likewise tried to board the aircraft to meet the Russian president but was informed by a member of Mr Yeltsin's staff that this was not possible.
Mr Kozyrev said he discussed the incident later with "a high-ranking Irishman" who told him: "We Irish, like you Russians, also like to drink, and all kinds of things happen here.
"So if your president had come out to see us, we wouldn't have paid any attention to his state and would have forgiven him, but his refusal to come out of the airplane insulted us to the depth of our souls and showed us that a small country like Ireland wasn't worth reckoning with."
Asked yesterday if he was the "high-ranking Irishman" in question, former taoiseach Albert Reynolds said: "No way. I would not say a thing like that." In his article entitled, The President Failed to Show, originally published in the Russian language, Mr Kozyrev describes the incident as one of those "non-standard emergencies" which are "impossible to predict".
Mr Kozyrev recalls that, on September 30th, 1994, "nobody suspected anything untoward", but concern grew when President Yeltsin's aircraft arrived over Shannon and continued to circle the airport for more than an hour before touching down.
A Shannon-based official from the Russian airline, Aeroflot, told the ambassador that Mr Yeltsin would not be disembarking: "He was very tired and first vice-premier [ Oleg] Soskovets . . . would hold the talks instead of him."
The ambassador went on board with a view to persuading Mr Yeltsin to leave the aircraft: "I turned resolutely towards the president's compartment, but some figure wearing a sweater stood up and barred my way, saying: 'You can't go in there, the president is very tired, he has been in the air for 17 hours'."
This turned out to be Mr Yeltsin's bodyguard and confidant, Major-Gen Alexander Korzhakov.