JTA: Global Jewish News - 10.15.2007

Latvia protests Putin's Nazi accusation

(JTA) -- Latvia lodged an official protest after Vladimir Putin accused the Baltic states of Nazi glorification.

The Latvian Foreign Ministry expressed its "bewilderment" to Moscow after the Russian president's speech during a meeting with the representatives of the European Jewish Congress in Moscow last week.

During the meeting Putin said that "some Eastern European countries deny the Holocaust, and Latvia and Estonia, in particular, openly glorify Nazis".

Latvian Minister of Education, Tynis Lukas, advised his country "not to pay attention to Putin's words." The minister added that in Russia "there are more Nazi supporters than the entire Latvian or Estonian population".

In Latvia and Estonia, former Waffen-SS Legion members get together annually. Estonian authorities removed a Soviet-era "Bronze Soldier" memorial in the country's capital this year that sparkled a crisis between Russia and Estonia

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Agence France Presse - 10.11.2007

Estonia hits back over Putin's "Nazi" remarks

TALLINN, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) -- Estonia hit back at Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday for urging the European Union to clamp down on Tallinn's alleged "glorification" of Nazism, saying the Kremlin leader was just an "ordinary politician." 

"We do not glorify the Nazis in any way, but Moscow seems very upset that Estonia considers the Nazi era and Stalinism as equally evil and criminal regimes," said Education Minister Tonis Lukas while leading a cabinet session for Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, who is currently overseas. 

"There are more neo-Nazis in Russia than Estonians in Estonia," Lukas told reporters after the meeting. 

"I think it's time that we start to treat Putin as an ordinary politician and we should not pay too much attention to all he says," Lukas added. 

Putin had on Wednesday taken Estonia - which was occupied by the Red Army and then the Nazis during World War II, and subsequently ruled by the victorious Soviet Union until 1991 - to task when he met with leaders of the European Jewish Congress. 

Putin alleged that Estonia and neighbouring Latvia, which had the same wartime and Soviet experience, were opening favouring "a glorification of the Nazis and their allies." 

Putin claimed that such "facts go unnoticed by the European Union", saying Estonia had failed to condemn war criminals from the Nazi period, and lashing out at Latvia for allowing annual ceremonies to mark the creation of a Latvian force which fought on the German side against the Red Army. 

But Estonia's former premier Juhan Parts, who is now economy minister, said it was the Russian leader who couldn't get his facts straight. 

"The ongoing Nazi accusations about Estonia that we hear from Moscow indicate that Putin has no information about the real facts on that issue in Estonia," Parts said. 

Finance Minister Ivari Padar said such remarks were "insulting", although they "sometimes seem even funny" in Estonia. 

"But it's far from funny, because many people outside Estonia might consider that what Moscow says is true, even though it's not," Padar added. 

Russia and Estonia have been trading abuse for months, and relations are at their iciest since Tallinn regained its independence in 1991 amid the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The spat kicked off in April when Tallinn decided to move a Soviet-era war memorial from the capital's busy downtown Tallinn to a quiet cemetery -- a step Russian officials called "blasphemous". 

For many Estonians, the Bronze Soldier was a symbol of almost five decades of Soviet occupation after World War II. 

But for Russians -- and much of Estonia's Russian-speaking minority, which makes up around a quarter of the population of 1.3 million -- moving the monument and the remains dishonoured the memory of soldiers who fought the Nazis.