NGO leaders pleased with meeting with Putin, hope their dialogue with G8 leaders will become regular

July 4 - The leaders of international non-governmental organizations said their meeting with President Vladimir Putin was unprecedented and expressed the hope that their dialogue with the G8 leaders would become regular.

Kumi Naido, head of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), said the meeting with Putin, held after the Civil G8-2006 session, lasted three hours. He said it was an unprecedented event and expressed the hope that other G8 leaders would do the same.

Naido said they had mostly discussed energy security and climate change, security and development, human rights, and NGOs' role in Russia and the world as well as their relations with governments.

"The meeting took place in a friendly atmosphere, and we discussed many issues," the head of Call to Action said, adding that the President took notes during the meeting.

"We hope the G8 leaders will take into account the main ideas, and that such meetings will become regular, and the governments of G8 countries will cooperate with NGOs on a permanent basis," Naido said.

Replying to a question about differences in the atmosphere during the day session and the afternoon meeting with the President, the GCAP head said the issues on the agenda were the same, but some of them received more attention in the afternoon. In particular, they discussed the problem of Sudan's western province of Darfur during the afternoon session at the president's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo.

Irene Zubaida Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said she had asked Putin about NGOs in Russia. "In my opinion, there should be a measure of state regulation of NGOs, but the [Russian] law on NGOs is too complicated and allows for the control of NGOs, which makes them dependent [on the authorities]," she said. She said they provided examples proving that the law had greatly complicated the work of some organizations.

Khan said the Russian president expressed willingness to monitor the application of the law. "We are waiting to see how he does," Khan said.

Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, said he was happy to hear Putin speak about his commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.

"We did not accept the view that climate change does not depend on human activities," he said, adding that they also discussed nuclear power generation.

"We said that nuclear energy was not the only way to solve the problem," Leipold said.

Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam International, said they had also discussed the World Trade Organization. She said they expressed the fear that it was harmful to developing countries, especially their agriculture (some European countries subsidize their farmers), and she thought the President accepted their view.

Ramesh Singh, chief executive of ActionAid International, said he had spoken about the G8 leaders' failure to keep their promise to assist poor countries.

He said Putin had assured them the issue would be discussed at the G8 summit and a decision would be made on it.

Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency International, said she had focused on corruption. She said the G8 leaders should pay more attention to corruption, and Putin expressed readiness to discuss that issue.

Labelle said they wanted the G8 leaders to pledge to fight corruption to an equal degree in their own countries and elsewhere in the world.

Carroll Bogert, Associate Director of Human Rights Watch, said one of the most difficult issues, human rights, had been addressed at the meeting. She said that no G8 country was lily-white on the issue of corruption.

She said Putin replied that leaders were prone to criticizing others but refused to see problems at home.

"Today we asked Putin about practical changes in Russia, but he declined to answer," Bogert said.

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