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McFaul Swears He Is Not in Russia to Make Revolution
Interfax - 1.31.12 - JRL 2012-17

BARNAUL. Jan 31 (Interfax) - U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul disagrees that his meeting with representatives of Russia's non-systemic opposition should be perceived as a challenge, because such meetings are routine practice for U.S. authorities overseas.

When President Obama paid his first official visit to Britain, he met with government officials and with then opposition leader James Cameron, so "this is standard practice", McFaul told in an interview for the Pozner show on Channel 1.

McFaul dismissed as nonsense speculation in Russian media that the aim of his arrival in Russia as an ambassador was to prepare a revolution.

This nonsense has nothing to do with reality, he said.

McFaul repeated that this was not what President Obama had sent him to Russia for and that it was deeply erroneous to think that he had come to make a revolution.

Of course, we will support universal human values and modernization - both economic and political modernization, the ambassador said.

He said he had been perplexed by the reaction in Russia to his meeting with the non-systemic opposition.

"Why all that fuss? Half of those people have just been elected to your parliament, McFaul said.

On January 2012, McFaul and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with Russian opposition figures in the U.S. embassy in Moscow.

"First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma International Committee Leonid Kalashnikov of the KPRF (Communist party) faction, Oksana Dmitriyeva and Ilya Ponomaryov of the Just Russia faction, leader of the Yabloko party Sergei Mitrokhin, and my colleague and PARNAS (Party of People's Freedom) co-chairman Boris Nemtsov received personal invitations to that meeting," PARNAS' other co-chairman Vladimir Ryzhkov, who had also attended the meeting, said later.

Keywords: Russia, U.S.-Russian Relations - Russia News - Russia

 

BARNAUL. Jan 31 (Interfax) - U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul disagrees that his meeting with representatives of Russia's non-systemic opposition should be perceived as a challenge, because such meetings are routine practice for U.S. authorities overseas.

When President Obama paid his first official visit to Britain, he met with government officials and with then opposition leader James Cameron, so "this is standard practice", McFaul told in an interview for the Pozner show on Channel 1.

McFaul dismissed as nonsense speculation in Russian media that the aim of his arrival in Russia as an ambassador was to prepare a revolution.

This nonsense has nothing to do with reality, he said.

McFaul repeated that this was not what President Obama had sent him to Russia for and that it was deeply erroneous to think that he had come to make a revolution.

Of course, we will support universal human values and modernization - both economic and political modernization, the ambassador said.

He said he had been perplexed by the reaction in Russia to his meeting with the non-systemic opposition.

"Why all that fuss? Half of those people have just been elected to your parliament, McFaul said.

On January 2012, McFaul and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with Russian opposition figures in the U.S. embassy in Moscow.

"First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma International Committee Leonid Kalashnikov of the KPRF (Communist party) faction, Oksana Dmitriyeva and Ilya Ponomaryov of the Just Russia faction, leader of the Yabloko party Sergei Mitrokhin, and my colleague and PARNAS (Party of People's Freedom) co-chairman Boris Nemtsov received personal invitations to that meeting," PARNAS' other co-chairman Vladimir Ryzhkov, who had also attended the meeting, said later.