Twitter diplomacy - New fashion among statesmen

When Sweden’s foreign minister was unable to contact his counterpart in Bahrain, he took full advantage of the digital age and resorted to Twitter to get the message across.

London's The Telegraph reports that Carl Bildt used the social networking site to send a Tweet to Khalid Al Khalifa which could also be read by millions of fellow Twitter users.

The Tweet, sent at around 10.30pm GMT, from @carlbildt read: “@khalidalkhalifa Trying to get in touch with you on an issue.”

The message was sent from an iPad and was apparently in reply to a Tweet published by Al Khalifa around three hours earlier in which he noted Crown Prince Salman’s meeting with Foreign Secretary William Hague.

It was unclear whether Mr Bildt, who is a prolific Twitter user, received a response but his message was “retweeted” several times by amused web users.

Seven G8 leaders have a presence on the website, through accounts in their name, their office or spokesman. The only one choosing to abstain is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Matthias Lufkens, the associate director for media at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, has monitored Twitter diplomacy since last year.

He said that of the 62 world leaders from 49 countries that use Twitter, only 25 mutually follow at least one other leader.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stolenberg held a discussion on Twitter ahead of the Cancun climate change talks last autumn while Medvedev and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used the site to arrange a ski trip.

Earlier this month, Rwandan leader Paul Kagame engaged in an online spat with journalist Ian Birrell, former deputy editor of the Independent, who criticised him over his human rights record.

When Kagame noticed that Birrell had described him as “despotic and deluded”, he launched into a furious tirade, using more than 14 Twitter posts – heavy with exclamation marks – which could be viewed by all of his 13,000 followers.