By John Follain
Putin kept the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics waiting for 70 minutes -- a rare occurrence at the Vatican. At their first meeting in November 2013, he was 50 minutes late. That was about how long their second encounter lasted.
According to Lombardi, Francis told Putin the medallion
represented “the angel of peace, which defeats all wars and speaks of
solidarity among peoples.”
Francis has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, but diplomatically has stopped short of mentioning Russia by name.
Earlier on Wednesday Kenneth Hackett, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, urged the pope to say “something more about concern of territorial integrity, those types of issues.”
Peskov said the papal meeting was “very friendly” and Putin saw Francis as a “profound’ person.
Pope Francis waited for more than an hour to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin to commit to peace and dialogue on Ukraine.
Putin kept the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics waiting for 70 minutes -- a rare occurrence at the Vatican. At their first meeting in November 2013, he was 50 minutes late. That was about how long their second encounter lasted.
The meeting
got off to a chilly start. Francis looked solemn as he greeted Putin in
German with a simple “welcome” in his study at the Apostolic Palace.
Putin, who picked up the language as a KGB agent in East Germany,
responded with a gesture of thanks.
The
two men sat on opposite sides of the pope’s desk, gazing at each other
in silence as they waited for journalists and photographers to leave.
Once alone, they cut to the chase.
On
Ukraine, “the Holy Father stated the need to commit to a sincere and
great effort to achieve peace, and it was agreed it was important to
rebuild a climate of dialogue and that all parties commit to enforce the
Minsk accords,” referring to the cease-fire deal signed in February,
the pope’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said in a statement.
The pope asked that aid workers be given access to address the “serious” humanitarian crisis, Lombardi said.
The
conversation then shifted to the Middle East, in particular Syria and
Iraq, where both agreed on the urgency for peace with a special
reference to the plight of Christian minorities in the Muslim-dominated
region.
The
one-on-one ended with the pontiff, conceding a slight smile and gifting
Putin a medallion with a veiled reference to Ukraine and other
conflicts.
Francis has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, but diplomatically has stopped short of mentioning Russia by name.
Earlier on Wednesday Kenneth Hackett, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, urged the pope to say “something more about concern of territorial integrity, those types of issues.”
Asked
why Putin was so late, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were
delays in Milan, where the Russian leader was visiting the Expo 2015
world fair and seeing Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
Putin
left the Vatican in a black stretch Mercedes limousine, at the head of a
13-vehicle motorcade, just in time for a quick pow wow at the airport
with an old friend, ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.
