Russian Foreign Ministry protests anti-Russia statements by Latvian MP

Moscow hopes that certain statements by a Latvian MP will not be ignored in the Latvian foreign ministry.

The Russian foreign ministry reports that Moscow has got used to traditional aspersions by Latvian politicians on their Eastern neighbour. Still, revelations by the People's Party deputy Alexander Kirsteins, published recently in the Latvian newspaper Lauku Avize, strikes by its absurd vision of the second world war, Russian politics and the international situation today.

"It is not only that Kirsteins charges Russia with occupation of Latvia-this has become an obligatory programme for many Latvian MPs, he claims that the Soviet troops entered Latvia as allies of Hitlerite Germany. Besides, he demands that Russia pay back a corresponding compensation like Germany and, in addition, return the Abrene area (Pytalovo district). Passing from squaring historical accounts to modernity, the Latvian MP wonders why Latvia's American friends "sit on the NATO-Russia Council with those who collaborated with the Nazis and give their backing today to the separatist regimes in Abkhazia and the Dniester while waging a war in Chechnya.

Besides, this deputy sees the true reason for the tensions between the two countries in the Russian diplomats who retain their reactionary geopolitical views and seek to return the countries under the Moscow wing. In the opinion of the Russian foreign ministry, the article contains many other revelations of the inveterate Russophobic sort. Naturally, continues the Russian foreign ministry, such pronouncements can be ignored and considered Mr.Kirsteins's own business provided he does represent one of the leading parties in parliament and does not lead a Latvian delegation in NATO's parliamentary assembly.

Therefore, says the Russian foreign ministry, "the question that prompts itself is how his colleagues in the ruling coalition and parliament treat the deputy's anti-Russian attacks and claims trampling upon the principles of Europe's post-war set-up fixed in the Helsinki Final Act." Moscow suggests that NATO structures which Latvia is longing to join should have a closer look at who and with what political luggage knock on their doors.