McCain calls for leaders to boycott G8 summit in Russia

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US Senator John McCain called upon world leaders to boycott the G8 summit in Russia in July, questioning Moscow's commitment to democracy. In a speech to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, McCain said that President
Vladimir Putin had rolled back reforms in Russia and did not share the democratic values of the United States and Europe. "Under Mr Putin, Russia today is neither a democracy nor one of the world's leading economies, and I seriously question whether the G8 leaders should attend the St Petersburg summit," McCain said.

The high-profile Republican senator for Arizona, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who unsuccessfully ran for the US presidency in 2000, said Russia could have helped the United States and Europe transform the world following the end of the Cold War. "The Kremlin, however, shows no interest in such a relationship. Instead it continues to pursue foreign and domestic policies strongly at odds with our interests and values.

"Even after Iran rejected the EU-3 talks and removed nuclear seals, Moscow indicated that it would proceed with a one-billion-dollar deal to sell short-range missiles to Iran." With Russia's powerful Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov looking on, McCain said Russia had punished "democratic" Ukraine and Georgia by disrupting energy supplies "while providing cut-rate gas to the dictatorship in Minsk". "It (Russia) continues to prosecute a brutal war in Chechnya that has killed as many as 200,000, radicalizing the Muslim population, and it actively supports dictatorships in Central Asia."

McCain said "the broadcast media are Kremlin-controlled, as are parliament, provincial governors and the judiciary. All of these were free and independent when Mr Putin took office." The G8 summit will take place in Saint Petersburg on July 15-17. Turning to Iran, McCain described it as the "the world's chief state sponsor of international terrorism" and said it "defines itself by hostility to the United States and Israel". "Tehran's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons plainly poses an unacceptable risk to the international community," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060204/pl_afp/germanydefenceus_060204203649