Birthday cake but no Putin for France's Chirac

RIGA, Nov 30 (Reuters) French President Jacques Chirac got a birthday cake from his Latvian host but no surprise visit from Russian President Vladimir Putin to mark his 74th birthday.

President Vaira Vike-Freiberga had a Latvian soldier present the veteran French leader with a white-iced cake covered with red roses -- the colours of the Latvian flag -- when he arrived at what will almost certainly be his last NATO summit.

Mr Chirac kissed the president's hand as other leaders applauded, but he did not taste the cake.

Mr Putin caused a diplomatic frenzy on Tuesday by offering to drop in on the former Soviet republic after the summit to congratulate Chirac, a political ally, on his birthday yesterday.

President Putin was not invited to the summit and the move was seen by some diplomats as a bid to upstage the US-led defence alliance and cause mischief in the Baltic states, which no Russian leader has visited since they won independence from Moscow in 1991.

Mr Chirac said at a news conference he had been ''neither the instigator nor the organiser'' of the idea, and he would be receiving a telephone call from Putin instead.

Vike-Freiberga said she had given Chirac the cake as a consolation for having to spend his birthday at a NATO summit.

''I was quite ready to serve a dinner for him as well, along with any friends he might care to bring along,'' she said in a dig at President Putin, a former KGB agent.

But it was not to be. The Kremlin announced late on Tuesday that scheduling difficulties had made the trip impossible.

The episode highlighted tensions between NATO's new central and east European members and their former Cold War master.

''We should rembember where we are,'' Polish Defence Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said. ''From this city, people were once taken away in cattle wagons to Siberia. The KGB was murdering people and today we are here as a club of the most powerful democracies.'' Mr Chirac is expected to stand down next year after 12 years in office, although he has not officially ruled out running for an unprecedented third term.

Vike-Freiberga said French President Chirac had given her a birthday present too since she turns 69 on Friday -- a book by a courtier of 16th century French king Francois I.

REUTERS AKJ DS1030