By Oleg Shchedrov
MOSCOW -
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday Russian President
Vladimir Putin had too much personal power and that Washington
was closely watching the trial of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Rice, ending her first visit to Moscow
as Washington's top diplomat,
said she had talked "pretty pointedly" to Putin
about foreign investors' rights.
A Moscow court
is to hand down a verdict on April 27 in the fraud and tax evasion trial of Khodorkovsky, founder of the YUKOS oil firm. The case is
widely seen as orchestrated by the Kremlin to punish him for his political
ambitions.
"People are really watching that for signals that
indeed there is rule of law in Russia,"
Rice told reporters en route to her next stop, the Baltic state of Lithuania,
where she touched down on Wednesday evening.
Her remarks in Moscow,
which included charges that Russia
had no independent television channels, were unlikely to reach most Russians
since all leading TV networks failed to report them.
TV kept reports of her visit brief and relegated them to a
low position on news programs, though newspapers and radios that enjoy greater
independence gave her a warmer welcome.
Speaking in a live interview with Ekho
Moskvy radio before meeting Putin,
Rice renewed charges that Russia had some distance to go in developing its
democracy, including allowing the growth of an independent media free from
Kremlin pressure.
Rice, a specialist on the former Soviet Union
who interspersed her interview with a few phrases of Russian, couched her
criticism in diplomatic tones, but singled out the powers that Putin had accumulated since taking over in 2000.
"All that we are saying is that for the U.S.-Russia
relationship to really deepen and for Russia
to gain its full potential there needs to be democratic development.
"There should not be so much concentration of power
just in the presidency, there needs to be an independent media ... so that the
Russian people can debate and decide together the democratic future of Russia,"
she said in reply to questions from the public sent in to the radio station via
the Internet.
Rice told reporters during her flight to Lithuania
that in her meeting with Putin she had not raised the
issue of the Kremlin leader's powers.
Putin himself made no comment on
the talks, though Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov briefed reporters.
Russia
is considered a test case of President Bush's vow to make democracy crucial to
all U.S.
bilateral relations.
RUSSIA
ALARMED
Washington's support for popular revolutions that have
brought pro-Western governments to power in ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine have
alarmed Russia and Lavrov made clear that Moscow
wanted some kind of rules of the game to be set.
"I am convinced the United States, as much as Russia,
wants stability in the international relations and will achieve its goals on
the basis of international law," Lavrov told
reporters after his own meeting with Rice.
Rice set the tone for her visit on Tuesday by criticising the Kremlin's grip on power and the media.
She balanced her comments by saying she did not want Russia
to be isolated over democracy concerns and would support its efforts to join
the World Trade Organization.
Rights activists accuse Putin of
restricting democracy by abolishing the election of regional governors,
pursuing a vendetta against the YUKOS oil company and tightening Kremlin
control of the media.
Though Bush enjoys a warm friendship with Putin and has agreed to attend 60th anniversary
celebrations of the Allied victory in World War II in Moscow on May 9 Russian
commentators have voiced fears relations could be heading for rougher water.
As she flew out of Russia,
Rice told reporters that in the wake of the Khodorkovsky
trial and the legal onslaught that has crippled YUKOS, Russia
needed to prove to energy sector investors it was committed to the rule of law.
"They need to ... improve the understanding of the rest
of the world that Russia
is in fact committed to the rule of law, (and) the law is not going to be used
somehow as a weapon against foreign investors," she said.
"I think they understand as well as we do that that is
important to investor confidence and to future investment in Russia,"
Rice added.
4/20/05
Source: Reuters
7/11 Return to: Condoleezza Rice88