Oh, that awkward moment: Ukrainian PM greets Swiss president with Danish flag
An official visit of Switzerland’s president to Ukraine has kicked off with a diplomatic blunder as the country’s coup-imposed authorities greeted him with Danish flag instead of the Swiss.
It was Swiss president, Didier Burkhalter, who pointed the
mistake out to prime minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, during their
meeting on Monday.
However, Burkhalter was kind enough to treat the incident as a
joke, the Swiss media reports.
that moment when visiting Swiss president tells Ukraine President he put up the Danish rather than Swiss flag pic.twitter.com/YinyQFnynU
— petromatrix (@petromatrix) April 14, 2014
The flags of Switzerland and Denmark share the same red and white
colors and a cross. However, the shape of the two flags and the
crosses on them are different.
According to Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs,
Burkhalter is visiting Kiev to “underscore the constructive
role played by the OSCE in the Ukrainian crisis and the
organization’s intention to step up its efforts to contribute to
de-escalating the tensions in the country.”
After holding talks with Yatsenyuk and Ukraine’s foreign
minister, Andrey Deshchitsa, and the Swiss president will travel
to the port city of Odessa where pro-Russian moods are currently
on the rise.
