What is known about the Austrian foreign Minister, to the wedding where Putin travels
Wedding 53-year-old foreign Minister of Austria Karin Kneissl is unlikely to be noticed in Russia, if not one circumstance — among the guests of the celebration will be Vladimir Putin. Bi-bi-si tells what is known about official will personally come to congratulate the President of Russia.
The forthcoming visit of Vladimir Putin to Austria for the second time this summer — was a surprise. The media never wrote about the fact that the Russian President is close friends with Kneisl or her lover, 65-year-old businessman Wolfgang Malingerer.
Such invitations Putin takes infrequently — for example, in 2015, he didn’t come to the wedding of his press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, although his wife Tatiana Navka told me that the head of state called for the occasion.
For the wedding, which will take place in the South of Styria on 18 August, Putin will call on the way to Berlin — where he will have meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Karin Kneissl is headed by the foreign Minister of Austria since the winter of last year. She lives on a small farm South of Vienna. The Minister knows more than seven languages, is well versed in the middle East and has repeatedly called for dialogue with Russia amid the confrontation between Moscow and the West.
An expert on the Middle East
Kneisl was born in Vienna but at the age of four moved to Amman — Jordan’s capital.
Her father was a personal pilot of king Hussein and helped to create a national airline is Royal Jordanian Airlines. Mother Kneisl worked as a flight attendant.
In 1970 due to the outbreak of the country’s civil war, the family of the future foreign Minister was forced to leave Jordan, but the interest in the Middle East at Kneisl preserved. In high school, for example, she actively followed the war in Lebanon and even made it the theme of the graduation certificate.
In the mid-80s Kneissl studied law and Oriental languages at the University of Vienna. Her education she continued at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Jordan.
In the course of the year Kneisl engaged in Arabic studies at Georgetown University in the United States. In 1992 she graduated at the National school of administration in France, a thesis on the borders in the middle East.
Polyglot
The native language of Kneisl German, this will allow it during the wedding to communicate directly with Vladimir Putin, who owns the language.
The Minister for foreign Affairs of Austria also is fluent in Arabic. In addition, she speaks English, French, Italian and Spanish, and also knows Hebrew and Hungarian. Kneisl recently started learning Chinese.
Sometimes I dream in Italian, sometimes in French.Karin Kneissl foreign Minister of Austria
“The diary I keep it in French, because some personal things to me sometimes it’s easier to reflect on it”, — she said the Financial Times.
Teacher, journalist, diplomat
His diplomatic career Kneisl beginning in the late 1980s when he got a job at the Ministry of foreign Affairs of Austria. For several years she has worked in Paris and Madrid. While working in mid Kneisl mainly specialized in the problems of the Middle East.