Condoleezza Rice Met With Putin and son of Anna Politkovskaya

Condoleezza Rice on Saturday delivered a symbolic rebuke to Russia over shrinking press freedoms even as she courted President Vladimir Putin for help punishing Iran over its nuclear program, The Associated Press news agency reports.

Rice made a point of scheduling an interview with Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper where a Anna Politkovskaya had worked before her murder this month. Rice also met with the reporter’s son.

Rice’s one-day trip to Moscow followed talks in Asia last week over North Korea’s nuclear test on Oct. 9. Russia voted for U.N. penalties against North Korea after the test, and the United States is seeking Russian cooperation for an upcoming vote on sanctions against Iran.

Yet even before Rice arrived in the Russian capital, her Russian counterpart said Moscow will not allow the Security Council to be used for punitive measures against Iran. Russia, however, was ready to discuss ways to pressure Iran into accepting broader international oversight of its nuclear program, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

“Any measures of influence should encourage creating conditions for talks,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Kuwaiti News Agency KUNA that was posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry Web site Saturday.

“We won’t be able to support and will oppose any attempts to use the Security Council to punish Iran or use Iran’s program in order to promote the ideas of regime change there,” according to the interview Friday.

A draft resolution is expected to be introduced in the Security Council early this week, and diplomats have said they would seek limited penalties for Tehran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

Rice’s decision to meet with Novaya Gazeta editors and reporters was a reminder to Putin of the widening rift between Russia and the U.S. over what the Bush administration sees as a rollback of democratic gains under the Russian president.

She met privately with Putin later Saturday.

Previewing her message to the newspaper editors, Rice told reporters traveling with her that she wanted to speak to one of a shrinking number of “independent voices” in Russian media.

“The fate of journalists in Russia is a major concern,” Rice said. “Anna Politkovskaya was a particularly well-known and well-respected journalist so I think it’s important to note that.”

Politkovskaya repeatedly had accused Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov’s security forces of abducting, torturing and killing innocent people. Her newspaper posthumously published her last story that described alleged torture by the Kremlin-backed Chechen security services.

Politkovskaya, a sharp critic of Putin and the conduct of the Kremlin and of Russia’s war in Chechnya, was found shot dead at her Moscow apartment building.

Since Putin’s election more than six years ago, he has presided over what critics have called a steady rollback in press freedoms won since the Soviet Union’s collapse. Top independent television stations have been shut down and print media are under growing pressure from officials.

Putin said the killers had done the Russian government no favor. The killing “inflicts much greater damage to the government than any of her writing,” he said after the killing.

The media rights group Reporters Without Borders has called Putin one of the world’s press freedom “predators.”

Rice’s last Asian stop was in Beijing, North Korea’s traditional ally, where she met with a Chinese government envoy just back from a hastily arranged visit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Rice said the envoy, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, told her nothing that confirmed news reports about conciliatory moves from the North.

“Councilor Tang did not tell me that Kim Jong Il either apologized for the test or said that he would never test again,” Rice said, adding that she does not know the source of widely circulated South Korean media reports to the contrary.

“I don’t know whether or not Kim Jong Il said any such thing. But the Chinese … in a fairly thorough briefing to me about the talks, said nothing,” that confirms it, Rice said.

Lavrov, in the Kuwaiti interview, urged the U.S. and North Korea to settle issues such as U.S.-imposed financial restrictions in order to clear the way for international talks to resume on the North’s nuclear program.

“Both sides should show flexibility,” he said.

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U.S. Asks Georgia and Russia “to de-escalate the tensions”

“We are asking the Georgians and the Russians to do everything they can to de-escalate the tensions,” Rice told reporters traveling with her from Beijing to Moscow.

Rice, who arrived in Russia on a one-day visit, said she was very concerned about persistent tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow and especially the “frozen conflicts” of breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“I think we have been clear with both sides that cooler heads need to prevail here,” said Rice, pledging to raise the issue in her meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

The latest crisis between the two former Soviet states stemmed from Georgia’s brief detention of four Russian servicemen on suspicion of espionage.

They were released after international mediation but Russia cut sea, air rail and postal links and ordered the deportation of hundreds of Georgians it said were illegal immigrants.

Putin on Friday told European Union leaders in Finland that Georgia was risking bloodshed by seeking to regain control over the regions by military means.

“The rhetoric really needs to be lowered,” Rice said. “I would be especially concerned that there would be no rhetoric which might encourage activity —- military, provocative activity in these frozen conflicts of Abkhazia or South Ossetia.”

She added: “I think that (military action) is the kind of problem that could get out of control. I will talk to the Russians about that problem.”

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