"but Putin's remarks underscored a widening rift with the United States"Somewhere evolution and education got cooked in the squat. Nuclear tools, much less more advanced energy concepts required for survival, just do not mix well with contemporary skewed & limited beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral stages that humanity is being shaped towards (as Hawkin pointed out, Nuclear war still greatest threat to humanity). The "Trouble With Physics" poses Big Trouble indeed!
NYT February 1, 2007
Putin Considers Ties With Iran on Gas Sales
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
MOSCOW, Feb. 1 — Even as the United States intensifies its efforts to isolate Iran, President Vladimir V. Putin said Thursday that Russia would consider OPEC-like cooperation with Tehran on sales of natural gas. He stopped short of endorsing price-fixing, however, saying he was concerned only with insuring stable supplies for consuming nations.
Mr. Putin reiterated Russia’s opposition to Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons, but his remarks underscored a widening rift with the United States and its allies over how to force Tehran to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions.
“We think that the people of Iran should have access to modern technologies, including nuclear ones,” he said, adding that “they should choose a variant that will guarantee Iran access to nuclear energy” while complying with Tehran’s commitment not to build weapons under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Mr. Putin’s remarks were delivered as part of his annual winter news conference, an affair that offers journalists an exhaustive, unconstrained opportunity to press him on the issues of the day. He answered 66 questions over the course of three and a half hours, largely without the rancor or prickly defensiveness that has characterized previous sessions.
In the realm of foreign affairs, he denied that Russia used its natural resources as a political tool, and he expressed new opposition to the expansion of NATO, though mildly. He criticized American negotiations to construct components of a national missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even as he confidently said Russia now possessed the missiles to thwart such defenses.
He also made his most extensive remarks on the poisoning of Aleksandr V. Litvinenko, the former secret service officer who died of radioactive poisoning in London in November and accused Mr. Putin himself in a deathbed statement.
He dismissed Mr. Litvinenko as a low-level officer in the “convoy troops” who “did not protect any secrets” and who had been fired after being convicted of abusing his office by beating detainees.
“Whatever he could say negatively about his service, he said it a long time ago,” he said, suggesting that Mr. Litvinenko’s repeated accusations of nefarious activities by Russia’s secret services were baseless inventions. The question of his murderer, he said, was a matter for investigators, but he dismissed accusations by some of his own aides that Mr. Putin’s enemies had killed Mr. Litvinenko in an attempt to discredit the Kremlin. “I do not believe in conspiracy theories,” he said.
On issues at home, he vowed that Russia would hold democratic elections for Parliament in December and for his successor when he steps down in 2008, though he remained coy about who, if anyone, he would support. Exuding confidence, he touted the country’s economic growth and several times emphasized its progress toward democracy, a picture starkly at odds with accusations of his critics, here and abroad, that he had steadily eroded basic freedoms.
He raised the killing of Paul Klebnikov, the Russian-American editor of the local edition of Forbes magazine, saying he agreed with a statement that the journalist, shot to death in 2004, had died fighting “for a democratic Russia.” He also offered respect, if not praise exactly, for another slain journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed last October. He said that she had “criticized the authorities fairly acutely, which is good.”
Mr. Putin also sidestepped a question about comments made this week by Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov of Moscow, who called an unsuccessful effort to hold a gay rights parade “a Satanic event.” Mr. Putin said his attitude toward gay men and lesbians was connected to his concern about Russia’s declining population, suggesting that those who did not bear children were not helping the problem.
“Having said that,” he went on, “I respect and will respect the freedoms of all shades of people, of all shades of those freedoms.”
On Iran, Russia has held out for a negotiated compromise, a position at odds with the Bush administration’s efforts to turn Iran’s leadership into political and economic pariahs.
Mr. Putin’s senior aide, Igor S. Ivanov, visited Iran last week and discussed the nuclear issue, as well as potential energy cooperation with Iran, which has reserves of natural gas second only to Russia’s. Mr. Putin said he hoped the visit would “remove any suspicions on the international community about Iran’s alleged plans to build nuclear weapons.”
Mr. Putin also endorsed an idea floated last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director, Mohamed ElBaradei, to suspend sanctions if Iran agreed to a suspension of uranium enrichment.
During Mr. Ivanov’s visit, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by news agencies as saying that Russia and Iran could establish “an organization of gas cooperation like OPEC.” Mr. Putin responded by calling it “an interesting idea.”
He went on to say that Russia opposed creating a price-setting cartel — something that European and other countries fear — but that “to coordinate our activities would be worthwhile, with an eye to the solution of the main goal of unconditionally and securely supplying the main consumers of energy resources.”
Mr. Putin recently visited Algeria, another major producer of natural gas, where he oversaw the signing of a cooperation agreement with the two countries’ gas giants, Gazprom and Sonatrach. He is to visit Qatar, another important gas producer, next week.
Christopher Weafer, chief strategist of Alfa Bank in Moscow, said in a note that Mr. Putin appeared less interested in creating a new OPEC to dominate energy markets than in using closer cooperation with other producers to “turn Russia from an ‘energy threat’ to some sort of ‘energy mediator’” in the eyes of Europe and other countries.
Putin Considers Ties With Iran on Gas Sales
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
MOSCOW, Feb. 1 — Even as the United States intensifies its efforts to isolate Iran, President Vladimir V. Putin said Thursday that Russia would consider OPEC-like cooperation with Tehran on sales of natural gas. He stopped short of endorsing price-fixing, however, saying he was concerned only with insuring stable supplies for consuming nations.Mr. Putin reiterated Russia’s opposition to Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons, but his remarks underscored a widening rift with the United States and its allies over how to force Tehran to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions.
“We think that the people of Iran should have access to modern technologies, including nuclear ones,” he said, adding that “they should choose a variant that will guarantee Iran access to nuclear energy” while complying with Tehran’s commitment not to build weapons under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Mr. Putin’s remarks were delivered as part of his annual winter news conference, an affair that offers journalists an exhaustive, unconstrained opportunity to press him on the issues of the day. He answered 66 questions over the course of three and a half hours, largely without the rancor or prickly defensiveness that has characterized previous sessions.
In the realm of foreign affairs, he denied that Russia used its natural resources as a political tool, and he expressed new opposition to the expansion of NATO, though mildly. He criticized American negotiations to construct components of a national missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even as he confidently said Russia now possessed the missiles to thwart such defenses.
He also made his most extensive remarks on the poisoning of Aleksandr V. Litvinenko, the former secret service officer who died of radioactive poisoning in London in November and accused Mr. Putin himself in a deathbed statement.
He dismissed Mr. Litvinenko as a low-level officer in the “convoy troops” who “did not protect any secrets” and who had been fired after being convicted of abusing his office by beating detainees.
“Whatever he could say negatively about his service, he said it a long time ago,” he said, suggesting that Mr. Litvinenko’s repeated accusations of nefarious activities by Russia’s secret services were baseless inventions. The question of his murderer, he said, was a matter for investigators, but he dismissed accusations by some of his own aides that Mr. Putin’s enemies had killed Mr. Litvinenko in an attempt to discredit the Kremlin. “I do not believe in conspiracy theories,” he said.
On issues at home, he vowed that Russia would hold democratic elections for Parliament in December and for his successor when he steps down in 2008, though he remained coy about who, if anyone, he would support. Exuding confidence, he touted the country’s economic growth and several times emphasized its progress toward democracy, a picture starkly at odds with accusations of his critics, here and abroad, that he had steadily eroded basic freedoms.
He raised the killing of Paul Klebnikov, the Russian-American editor of the local edition of Forbes magazine, saying he agreed with a statement that the journalist, shot to death in 2004, had died fighting “for a democratic Russia.” He also offered respect, if not praise exactly, for another slain journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed last October. He said that she had “criticized the authorities fairly acutely, which is good.”
Mr. Putin also sidestepped a question about comments made this week by Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov of Moscow, who called an unsuccessful effort to hold a gay rights parade “a Satanic event.” Mr. Putin said his attitude toward gay men and lesbians was connected to his concern about Russia’s declining population, suggesting that those who did not bear children were not helping the problem.
“Having said that,” he went on, “I respect and will respect the freedoms of all shades of people, of all shades of those freedoms.”
On Iran, Russia has held out for a negotiated compromise, a position at odds with the Bush administration’s efforts to turn Iran’s leadership into political and economic pariahs.
Mr. Putin’s senior aide, Igor S. Ivanov, visited Iran last week and discussed the nuclear issue, as well as potential energy cooperation with Iran, which has reserves of natural gas second only to Russia’s. Mr. Putin said he hoped the visit would “remove any suspicions on the international community about Iran’s alleged plans to build nuclear weapons.”
Mr. Putin also endorsed an idea floated last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director, Mohamed ElBaradei, to suspend sanctions if Iran agreed to a suspension of uranium enrichment.
During Mr. Ivanov’s visit, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by news agencies as saying that Russia and Iran could establish “an organization of gas cooperation like OPEC.” Mr. Putin responded by calling it “an interesting idea.”
He went on to say that Russia opposed creating a price-setting cartel — something that European and other countries fear — but that “to coordinate our activities would be worthwhile, with an eye to the solution of the main goal of unconditionally and securely supplying the main consumers of energy resources.”
Mr. Putin recently visited Algeria, another major producer of natural gas, where he oversaw the signing of a cooperation agreement with the two countries’ gas giants, Gazprom and Sonatrach. He is to visit Qatar, another important gas producer, next week.
Christopher Weafer, chief strategist of Alfa Bank in Moscow, said in a note that Mr. Putin appeared less interested in creating a new OPEC to dominate energy markets than in using closer cooperation with other producers to “turn Russia from an ‘energy threat’ to some sort of ‘energy mediator’” in the eyes of Europe and other countries.
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