Posts Tagged ‘mexico’
Russia may restrict Americans over rights dispute
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the controversial death of an anti-corruption lawyer in Russia a tragedy, but said Moscow would retaliate if the U.S. Congress used the case to penalize Russians for alleged human rights abuses.
Speaking to reporters at the end of the Group of 20 summit in Mexico on Tuesday, Putin said Russia did not think the matter prompted by the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, 37, deserved the attention it was getting in Washington.
A U.S. Senate committee plans to vote next week on a bipartisan proposal to deny visas and freeze assets of Russians linked to Magnitsky’s death after he spent a year in Russian jails.
Magnitsky worked for the equity fund Hermitage Capital in Moscow and his case spooked investors and blackened the nation’s image abroad.
The Senate version would also include human rights abusers “anywhere in the world,” a provision some say could keep Russia from feeling singled out but would also be difficult to implement.
A House of Representatives committee approved its own version this month.
Putin said Russia would reciprocate if the full Congress were to act.
"As far as this law linked to Magnitsky's tragedy is concerned, if it will be passed, so be it," Putin said.
"We do not think that it (situation around Magnitsky) deserves such an attention from the Congress, but if there will be restrictions on entry to (the) U.S. for some Russian citizens, then there will be restrictions for entry to Russia for some Americans," he said. "I do not know who needs it and why, but if it happens it happens. The choice is not ours."
Magnitsky was jailed in Russia in 2008 on charges of tax evasion and fraud. His colleagues say those were fabricated by police investigators whom he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax returns.
The Kremlin's own human rights council said last year that he was probably beaten to death.
Putin and Obama discussed the Magnitsky bill on Monday at the Mexico summit, U.S. envoy to Russia Michael McFaul said.
The Obama administration says it understands concerns of the bill's sponsors about rights abuses. But it says the bill is unnecessary.
The White House is anxious to keep the push for sanctions on rights abusers in Russia from slowing efforts to get congressional approval of "permanent normal trade relations" with Moscow this year.
Those efforts are also under threat by U.S. lawmakers unhappy with Russia's support for the Syrian government in its bloody crackdown on a revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. hairy girl unshaven girl https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/emergency-payday-loans.php hairy women
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FPI Bulletin: Mr. President, Drop the Russian Reset
President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin met this morning on the sidelines of the G-20 Economic Summit in Mexico. Their bilateral meeting, however, came not only after Russian internal security services recently harassed, detained, and interrogated key political opposition leaders in response to large anti-government protests in Moscow, but also as the Kremlin continues its support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s bloody campaign against opposition groups and civilians.
For over two years, the Obama administration has argued that its policy of “resetting” relations with Russia would lead to the Kremlin’s strong cooperation on a broad range of international issues. However, as the Foreign Policy Initiative has argued, it is clear that the Russian Reset has failed to fully yield the promised results.
Moscow continues to shield the Assad regime in the U.N. Security Council, and bolster Assad with air defenses and other military means. It opposes imposing crippling sanctions against Iran, even as Iranian efforts are bringing it ever closer to nuclear weapons-making capability. It continually excuses North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile provocations. More recently, the Kremlin has threatened retaliation if Congress passes the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. Named after an anti-corruption lawyer who died after being tortured in a Russian prison, the Magnitsky Act would impose a set of wide-ranging sanctions against Russian officials responsible for internal human rights violations and corruption.
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Syria Crisis and Putin’s Return Chill U.S. Ties With Russia
Sitting beside President Obama this spring, the president of Russia gushed that “these were perhaps the best three years of relations between Russia and the United States over the last decade.” Two and a half months later, those halcyon days of friendship look like a distant memory.
Gone is Dmitri A. Medvedev, the optimistic president who collaborated with Mr. Obama and celebrated their partnership in March. In his place is Vladimir V. Putin, the grim former K.G.B. colonel whose return to the Kremlin has ushered in a frostier relationship freighted by an impasse over Syria and complicated by fractious domestic politics in both countries.
The tension over Syria has been exacerbated by an accusation by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday that Russia is supplying attack helicopters to the government of President Bashar al-Assad as it tries to crush an uprising. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, rejected the assertions on Wednesday, saying that Moscow was supplying only defensive weapons and countering that the United States was arming the region.
The back-and-forth underscored the limits of Mr. Obama’s ability to “reset” ties between the two countries, as he resolved to do when he arrived in office. He has signed an arms control treaty, expanded supply lines to Afghanistan through Russian territory, secured Moscow’s support for sanctions on Iran and helped bring Russia into the World Trade Organization. But officials in both capitals noted this week that the two countries still operated on fundamentally different sets of values and interests.
The souring relations come as Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin are preparing to meet for the first time as presidents next week on the sidelines of a summit meeting in Mexico. With Mr. Obama being accused by Mitt Romney, his Republican presidential opponent, of going soft on Russia and Mr. Putin turning to anti-American statements in response to street protests in Moscow, the Mexico meeting is being seen as a test of whether the reset has run its course.
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