‘US accused of meddling in Russian internal affairs’

Agencies | Moscow

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com   

President Vladimir Putin would respond in kind if the new US administration showed a willingness to talk, a Kremlin spokesman said yesterday, while also accusing Washington of meddling in mass protests in support of detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The Kremlin also downplayed the scale of Saturday’s demonstrations, which saw police detain more than 3,000 people and use force to break up rallies across Russia. Prior to the protests, the US Embassy in Moscow had issued a “Demonstration Alert”, warning US citizens to avoid the protests and naming the venues in Russian cities where protesters planned to gather.

“Of course, those publications are inappropriate,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Rossiya 1 TV yesterday, according to Interfax news agency. “And of course, indirectly, they are absolute interference in our internal affairs.

So, this is direct support of the breach in the Russian Federation’s law.” The embassy, in emailed comments, said such warnings were a “common and routine practice” of many countries’ diplomatic missions.

“US embassies and consulates around the world regularly issue safety and security messages to our citizens,” it said.

The US on Saturday called on Russian authorities to release protesters and journalists detained at the demonstrations and condemned what it called “harsh tactics” used by the police against them.