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V.Putin: At the funeral today, I think that very good, appropriate words were found to describe him. Doctor Klestil was a man who as a politician belonged to all of mankind, but at the same time he was a true patriot of his country and his people in the best sense of this word.
He always had his own opinions on all issues of world politics, and as a rule they turned out to be absolutely correct.
He was a very decent, honest and consistent person. His word could always be relied upon.
Our opinions did not always coincide. I repeat, he had his own opinion on very many problems, but his position was always sincere and open, and any partner of Doctor Klestil had to respect this position, and did respect it. And as he was the President of Austria and expressed his country’s position, the same respect he was shown was also shown to the country that he loved very much.
Naturally, I came here to express my condolences to his family and to the new Austrian President, but not just because of this. I want to stress my respect for Austria and the Austrian people, stress the level of mutual relations between our countries, and of course pay tribute to a man with whom I shared very warm human relations in recent years.
July 10, 2004, Vienna, Austria