Posts Tagged ‘peskov’
Edward Snowden: Russia offers to consider asylum request
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says any appeal for asylum from whistleblower who fled US will be looked at ‘according to facts’.
Russia has offered to consider an asylum request from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, in the Kremlin’s latest move to woo critics of the west.
Snowden fled the United States before leaking the details of a top-secret US surveillance programme to the Guardian this month. He is currently believed to be in Hong Kong, but has reportedly changed hotels to keep his location secret.
Fearing US retaliation, Snowden said at the weekend that “my predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values”, citing Iceland as an example. He defended his decision to flee to Hong Kong by citing its relative freedom compared with mainland China.
Snowden is not known to have made any asylum requests, including to Russia. Yet speaking to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said: “If such an appeal is given, it will be considered. We’ll act according to facts.”
Peskov’s comments were widely carried by the Russian media, which have largely ignored Snowden’s revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) was secretly empowered with wide-reaching authority to collect information from the US mobile provider Verizon and to snoop on emails and internet communications via a data-mining programme called Prism. Russia’s feared security services are widely believed to maintain similar powers.
Peskov’s comments on potential asylum opened the floodgates on support for Snowden. Robert Shlegel, an influential MP with the ruling United Russia party, said: “That would be a good idea.”
Alexey Pushkov, head of the Duma’s international affairs committee and a vocal US critic, said on Twitter: “By promising asylum to Snowden, Moscow has taken upon itself the protection of those persecuted for political reasons. There will be hysterics in the US. They only recognise this right for themselves.”
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US publishes Magnitsky list of sanctioned Russians
The United States has published a list of mainly Russian officials banned from entering the country because of alleged human rights abuses.
Russia had earlier warned against making the 18 names public, warning it could severely damage relations.
The US imposed the sanctions after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 in disputed circumstances.
The list includes tax officials and police officers who jailed Magnitsky after he accused them of corruption.
But senior officials from President Vladimir Putin’s entourage who had been expected to be included were left off, including Russia’s top police official Alexander Bastrykin.
Alexei Pushkov, a senior Russian lawmaker, said the pared down list suggested that “the US presidential administration decided not to take the path of aggravating a political crisis with Moscow”, according to the Interfax news agency.
Some 250 names had originally been put forward by US politicians. The final list includes people from Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, 16 of them linked to the Magnitsky case.
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Washington to Release Magnitsky Blacklist Today
The Kremlin was bracing for the release late Friday of a U.S. blacklist of Russians that could include Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
At the same time, the authorities were preparing to release their own blacklist with U.S. citizens.
Washington was expected to release its blacklist at 2 p.m. (10 p.m. Moscow time). The list, required under the Magnitsky Act signed into law in December, aims to punish Russian officials implicated of human rights violations by barring their entry into the U.S. and depriving them of U.S.-based assets.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman acknowledged Friday that the release of the blacklists would further strain relations between the two countries.
“The appearance of any kind of blacklist will, of course, have a negative impact on Russian-U.S. relations,” Peskov said.
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Russia central banker slams vast criminal cash export
Russia’s central bank chief complained on Wednesday that some 2.5 percent of the national income was illegally siphoned abroad last year – a revelation critics said showed the extent of corruption under Vladimir Putin.
Bank of Russia chairman Sergei Ignatyev, who is about to retire, reckoned much of that sum, close to $50 billion, was controlled by a single group of people; he did not identify them but many saw it as an indictment of the “Kremlin capitalism” which has taken hold since Putin first became president in 2000.
One prominent critic called it “state money-laundering”.
“You get the impression that they are all controlled by one well organized group of people,” Ignatyev told Vedomosti newspaper in a front-page interview after a Bank study found more than half the flows involved firms linked to each other.
“With a serious concentration of efforts by law enforcement agencies, I think it is possible to find these people,” added Ignatyev, 65, who will retire in June after 11 years running an institution which has won widespread respect for integrity.
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Resetting the U.S.-Russian Reset
The following is a transcript of an interview with Dmitry Peskov, deputy chief of staff and press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, conducted by Paul Saunders, associate publisher of The National Interest and executive director of the Center for the National Interest, Washington, D.C. The interview was conducted Wednesday morning, January 23, 2013.
Paul Saunders: Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us. The “reset” in the U.S.-Russia relationship was one of the first foreign policy initiatives during President Obama’s first term. We heard recently that senior State Department officials have said that the word “reset” should be retired because the relationship has moved in a new direction and it’s no longer necessary to have a reset. How do you see the future of the reset after President Obama’s reelection?
Dmitry Peskov: Well, as a matter of fact Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov would say that is a very popular idea here in Moscow [to retire the word “reset”] and that it is a process that cannot be endless. And if the reset lasts for too long, that means to make something different, a different operation to get the process going. So let’s hope together that this is not the case. Well, unfortunately the flow of our bilateral relationship, the flow of some steps from Washington, it shows a kind of an attitude that unfortunately cannot be treated in Moscow as a “reset” mood. So that’s why we are very sorry because we are looking forward to having a working relationship of close partnership with the United States, developing a mutual responsibility for global security, for global strategic security, for regional security and solving all the issues in that connection and originally by diplomatic and peaceful methods, taking into account each other’s relationship, but definitely it takes two to tango. I mean we cannot build a bilateral relationship of friendship and partnership on our own. Unfortunately we witnessed some steps that in no way can be treated as a “reset” attitude.
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Russia set to advance ban on US adoptions
Russia’s upper house of parliament was due Wednesday to vote for a bill barring Americans from adopting the country’s children, in retaliation for a new piece of human rights legislation in the US.
The highly contentious bill has inflamed tensions between the two former Cold War rivals at a time when Washington needs Moscow’s help to convince President Bashar al-Assad to quit power in Syria.
The draft legislation has already passed the three required readings in the State Duma lower house and is due to reach President Vladimir Putin’s desk before the end of the year.
The Federation Council upper chamber — comprised exclusively of Putin allies and ruling party members — is expected to overwhelmingly approve the measure after it was backed in a committee meeting on Tuesday.
“This will not lead to any infringement of international rights,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
“Russia is fully implementing the rights it has under international law,” he added in comments that reinforced speculation that Putin would sign the bill into law.
The bill also includes a provision banning Russian political organisations that receive US funding.
The legislation came after US President Barack Obama this month signed into law the Magnitsky Act — a measure paying tribute to a Russian lawyer who died in police custody in 2009 after exposing a $235 million police embezzlement scheme.
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