Ministry spokesperson Ehtel Halliste quoted Paet as saying, "This is disappointing... This [decision] has shown that Russia is not interested in relations with Estonia."
Relations between the two countries have been tense in recent times due to land and sea border disputes.
In a recent related development, Estonian Minister of Regional Affairs Jaan Ounapuu, who was granted a Russian visa to attend the roundtable set for November 10-11, said he would not go to St. Petersburg.
On September 2, the Russian Foreign Ministry commented on a Baltic News Service report regarding "a number of tactless remarks about Russia" by Paet. The ministry said he had "deliberately twisted the facts and substituted the object of criticism" in comments about Russian xenophobia in the central republic of Mari El, which has a significant ethnic Mari population.
"As far as Paet's assessments of the situation in Mari El and the position of the Ugro-Finnish peoples in Russia are concerned, it is difficult to comment upon this. Not only does the opinion of Urmas Paet not correspond to reality, but even some of the members of Estonia's Cabinet of Ministers do not share it either," the ministry said.
