Awkward Putin Fidgets After Being Kept Waiting By Erdoğan During Tehran Talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin found himself in an awkward situation on Tuesday as Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan kept him waiting in front of the press, in a tactic that was typically used by Putin to gain the upper hand with other world leaders.

Putin and Erdoğan were in Tehran, Iran together for a summit of scheduled talks between the three countries, whose topics varied between Russia’s conflict with Ukraine as well as Turkey’s ongoing crisis related to the Syrian Civil War, according to the Guardian.

During talks on Tuesday, however, Putin was left waiting for Erdoğan for about a minute after he entered, awkwardly fidgeting, clasping his hands, and shifting his weight in front of the media before letting his hands fall to the side in exasperation as Erdoğan entered the room, Reuters reported.

Many see this as Erdoğan’s revenge against Putin for a 2020 incident where he was left waiting for two minutes by Putin in Moscow, in what Erdoğan and his staff reportedly considered humiliating as they were forced to wait for Putin during that time.

“Those 50 seconds that Erdoğan made Putin wait, looking frazzled in front of cameras, say plenty of how much has changed after Ukraine,” Joyce Karam, a senior correspondent for National News in the Middle East, said.

Forcing leaders to wait for him to arrive is a known power move by Putin to assert his dominance over other individuals. He was once late for 14 minutes to a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II in 2003, and reportedly once left former German Chancellor Angela Merkel waiting for more than four hours for a meeting.

He does this even with leaders with whom he has a warm relationship with, as he once kept former U.S. President Donald Trump waiting for 45 minutes during a meeting between the two in 2018.

Erdoğan is the first NATO leader to meet with Putin since the Russia-Ukraine War began, and he reportedly received a positive reception from Putin regarding his idea of allowing Ukrainian grain ships to leave Odessa if they pass a weapons check from the country.

The President of Turkey is also reportedly attempting to get Putin to back a buffer zone on the border between Turkey and Syria from what Erdoğan claims are attacks coming from the Syrian Kurds.