Russian opposition parties’ leaders praise meeting with Putin

File Photo of Vladimir Putin at Valdai Club 2013 Meeting, Adapted from Screenshot of Valdai Club Video at youtube.com

(Interfax – Moscow, November 21, 2013) [Non-parliamentary] opposition parties’ leaders have welcomed yesterday’s [20 November] meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying it was constructive and expressing hope for [positive] outcome.

As the co-chairman of the RPR-Parnas party Vladimir Ryzhkov told Interfax, “the impressions from the meeting with the president are good”.

“Some changes have been made for the first time in two years, and the people who come to the Bolotnaya Square and Sakharova [Square, both in central Moscow] have started hoping that the authorities have heard their demands and opened a dialogue,” Ryzhkov told Interfax.

He went on to say that he had handed over to the president a list of political prisoners compiled by the human rights center Memorial as well as a 500-page report on public investigation into Bolotnaya Square events [mass riots in May 2012] and a resolution drawn up as a result of the rallies in Bolotnaya and Sakharova squares.

“The president said he would examine this most carefully,” Ryzhkov said. He also added that it was the first meeting with the country’s leadership after the one with former Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev. “Political reform was launched after the meeting with Medvedev but it failed to reach its goal, and at the yesterday’s meeting I suggested creating a work team that would accomplish the reform and would ensure fair elections, without vote fraud, in the country,” Ryzhkov said.

He refused to suggest what outcome they could expect from the yesterday’s discussion with the president, however, he added that “that is really good that we managed to get the thoughts of people, demands for amnesty and other issues across to the country’s leadership”.

“The atmosphere was normal, working, there was no aggression and no-one was trying to humiliate or discredit anybody,” Ryzhkov said.

A source close to the Civil Platform party leader, Mikhail Prokhorov, told Interfax that his impressions from the meeting with the president were positive.

“The dialogue, in Prokhorov’s opinion, was held in a very constructive way. Vladimir Putin was listening carefully and showed interest in everything that Prokhorov was saying. It seemed that both sides were satisfied with the discussion,” the source said.

The source also added that Prokhorov had a feeling that he had been heard, and that everything he had proposed to the president would get a correct assessment and [his efforts] would be continued.

[Earlier, speaking to Gagprom-owned but editorially independent Ekho Moskvy radio at 1607 gmt on 20 November, Ryzhkov said that “for the first time in many years” he had a chance to speak about Russian political prisoners with the president. Ryzhkov also noted that, in his opinion, the president had not denied that political prisoners indeed existed in the country. He said: “No, he did not deny that there were political prisoners [in Russia].

Roughly speaking, he said the following: ‘Yes, I understand that the problem exists, I understand that there are tensions in the society, I understand that they should be calmed.'” Ryzhkov also disagreed with the opinion voiced by some opposition activists that the meeting was “for show”.

[featured image is file photo]

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