During a private talk with Vladimir Putin, Anders Fogh Rasmussen indeed had a recorder with him, Denmark's Ritzau news agency reports. The meeting of Rasmussen and Putin took place in Brussels in 2002, when Denmark presided in the European Union, Itar Tass reports.
During his annual call-in session with the nation on Thursday, Putin expressed indignation at the fact that current NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen once, when he was Danish prime minister, secretly taped him without permission and published the private talk.