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Putin says US withdrawal from Iraq would compound error of war
MOSCOW ? Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV interview that, although he believes the Iraq war was a serious mistake, a US withdrawal before the county stabilizes would compound the problem. "Democracy cannot be exported to some other place. This must be a product of internal domestic development in a society," Putin said in the interview aired Sunday night on the US television network CBS' news magazine program "60 Minutes."
"But if the United States were to leave and abandon Iraq without establishing the grounds for a united country, that would be a second mistake," he said. In the interview, Putin rejected suggestions that he was rescinding Russian democracy by measures such as ending direct election of governors, while he took at swipe at the US presidential election system, in which voters choose electors who then elect the president. "In Russia, the president is elected through the direct vote of the whole population. That might be even more democratic," Putin said, and then went on to note the legal disputes over the US presidential vote in 2000. "You have other problems in your elections. Four years ago your presidential election was decided by the court. "But we're not going to poke our noses into your democratic system because that's up to the American people," he said. The comment reflected Russia's frequent contention that foreign criticism effectively amounts to interference in its internal affairs.
Posted by: Steve White 2005-05-09 |
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