Associated Press - 02.21.2007

End to Soviet-era trade limits sought

By Maria Danilova

MOSCOW (AP) — The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Wednesday he would call for the removal of Russia from the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which has restricted bilateral trade and remained a key irritant in relations between Moscow and Washington.

"It's time to put behind us this relic of the Cold War," Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said at a news conference. "I will spare no effort to bring this about and I have every expectation that I will be successful."

Moscow has long urged the United States to abolish the Jackson-Vanik amendment tying Russia's trade status to whether it freely allows Jewish emigration. President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials and lawmakers long have criticized Washington for failing to repeal the legislation, saying the refusal to do so undermined trust between the two nations.

The abolition of the amendment is necessary for the United States to trade freely with Russia once it finalizes its bid to join the World Trade Organization.

Andrew Somers, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, hailed Lantos' statement.

"It's an extremely positive statement from the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Its a major step forward in U.S.-Russia relations and will put an end to this anachronistic piece of legislation," Somers told The Associated Press.

Russia's chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, said during a meeting with Lantos on Tuesday that "the preservation of the (Jackson-Vanik) amendments now, when Russia's Jews have fully equal rights, looks like a clear anachronism," Lazar's office said in a statement.

The statement from Lantos, a harsh critic of Russia's democracy record and human rights situation, comes at a time when U.S.-Russian ties have hit a new low with Putin's speech at a security conference in Munich earlier this month harshly criticizing U.S. global policy.

In what appeared to be an attempt to strike a conciliatory note, Lantos said Putin's statement was a "fully understandable" attempt to demonstrate that his country, a former superpower, was resurgent after years of post-Soviet demise and stressed that Putin's criticism should not stand in the way of the two countries' cooperation.

"The United States and Russia have far too many common interests and long-term goals," Lantos said, referring to global health, poverty reduction and international peace and security. "We certainly will not allow ... the speech to stand in the way of our very positive attitude towards Russia and our future cooperation."

Some analysts said that the Kremlin would likely see Lantos' statement as proof that Putin's new tough tone in relations with Washington had been the right strategy to force the United States to make concessions.

"I think it will be seen here that the message of Putin's now famous speech in Munich has been taken on board - that the West has recognized its mistake ... and a harsh, direct approach is the most effective way," said Andrei Ryabov, a Moscow-based political analyst.

At the same time, Lantos criticized Russia for prosecuting former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion in a politically charged trial widely seen as a Kremlin-driven punishment for challenging Putin.

Khodorkovsky was recently slapped with new charges in what his lawyers say is new effort to keep him behind bars beyond next year's presidential elections.

Lantos called Khodorkovsky a "political prisoner," and said he wished to visit him in prison and said his prosecution cast a "shadow over the reputation of Russia."

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The Moscow Times  - 02.20.2007

Lantos Arrives for Talks With Duma

A delegation of U.S. lawmakers led by senior Democratic Representative Tom Lantos arrived Monday for talks with their counterparts in the State Duma.

The U.S. delegation is scheduled to meet with Duma deputies Tuesday morning.

Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Duma's International Affairs Committee, told Interfax that he was prepared to discuss any and all issues with Lantos, including domestic issues in Russia.

Lantos, chairman of the International Relations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, has been an outspoken critic of Kremlin policy, calling at one point for Russia to be kicked out of the Group of Eight.

Lantos also called for the U.S. State Department to identify former Yukos executives Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev as "political prisoners" in its 2006 report on the human rights situation in various countries. 

"Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that Lantos has made sweeping, sharply critical statements about the situation in Russia based on nothing more than press reports and remarks by individual nongovernmental organizations," Kosachyov told Interfax.

Kosachyov said he hoped that the two sides would make progress on some of the issues raised in an appeal to the U.S. Congress passed by the Duma on Jan. 10.

"In that document we noted that the U.S. Congress is to blame for the fact that The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty have still not been ratified," Kosachyov said. 

"We also expect the United States to join the Kyoto Protocol and, finally, to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment regarding Russia," he said. Washington has already repealed the Jackson-Vanik trade restrictions for Ukraine.

While Lantos is a veteran lawmaker -- he was elected to Congress from his Northern California district nearly 30 years ago -- he was, until recently, relatively powerless. 

But with Democrats' takeover of Congress last year, he was elevated to committee chairman.