Dutch leaders and industrialists are expected to explore ways of increasing business with the booming Russian energy industry when President Vladimir Putin begins a state visit to the Netherlands on Tuesday, the first in 130 years by a Russian head of state, reported AP. Putin is due to meet business leaders at the start of the two-day visit that will include political talks with Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and a visit to the Peace Palace, seat of the U.N.'s International Court of Justice. Well before Putin's arrival, police closed off Amsterdam's central Dam Square where the president was scheduled to lay a wreath at the Dutch national monument opposite the royal family's palace in the capital city. Putin was repaying a 2001 state visit by Queen Beatrix. He had been due to visit in 2002 but the trip was postponed when terrorists seized 800 hostages at a Moscow theater that ended with 170 people dead. Although Putin has made business trips to the Netherlands before, it is the first state visit by a Russian leader since Czar Alexander II in 1874. --more 1356 Local Time 1056 GMT
