Interfax - 05.15.2006

Kantor discusses Holocaust Forum with U.S. senators

Moscow (Interfax) -- Vyacheslav Kantor, president of the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC) and the International Foundation for the Commemoration of the Holocaust and its Lessons, has met Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and several U.S. Members of Congress, the RJC's press service reported on Monday.

The RJC delegation and the U.S. officials discussed several issues related to the Second World Holocaust Forum, due to take place in Kyiv in September. "The sides agreed that any attempt to question the Holocaust should be resolutely resisted," the RJC release says.

The possibility of top U.S. officials taking part in the events of the forum alongside leaders from other countries, including Russia, was also discussed. Kantor also expressed his readiness to organize a meeting between leaders of Russian and American Jewish organizations in Moscow, the release says.

Legislators and NGOs should seek ways of expanding Russian-American dialogue and openly discussing their problems, it says.

Congressmen Gary Ackerman, Shelley Berkley, Nita Lowey, Robert Wexler and Henry Waxman spoke of their plans to write to the Russian leadership calling for the preservation and development of friendly dialogue between the two countries, in particular through practical projects such as a global program of action that would create the necessary prerequisites to ensure a decline in anti-Semitism and ethnic intolerance in the world, the release says.