Dismissing US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s criticism of President Vladimir Putin’s recently-announced radical and far-reaching political and security reforms, as ‘‘unfounded’’, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today that measures to meet the threats from international terrorism, were an internal matter of Russia that should not concern the US.‘‘Administrative and legislative reforms and processes underway in Russia, are an internal matter for this country,’’ Lavrov, otherwise a very polished senior diplomat, said at the margins of the summit of the CIS Foreign Ministers, in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on Wednesday.‘‘It looks rather strange that the concern expressed by the US Secretary of State, goes together with the suggestion that we should implement democratic reforms, following a single pattern,’’ he pointed out, stressing that it looked ‘‘odd’’ that Powell viewed as a ‘‘departure’’ from democratic values any actions that didn’t agree with the concept of democracy in one country alone.‘‘It is strange that while talking about a certain ‘pulling-back’, as he (Powell) put it, from some of the democratic reforms in Russia, he tried to assert yet one more time the thought that democracy can only be copied from someone’s model,’’ Lavrov said.He added that ‘‘on our part, for instance, we don’t comment on the US system of presidential elections’’.The Russian Foreign Minister said that he personally viewed Powell’s remarks as a confirmation of the need to take tough measures to fight terror, while observing a ‘‘balance’’ between the toughness of these measures and preservation of democratic values.‘‘After the events of 9/11, the US adopted very serious measures which also were given a mixed reaction by American society and produced mixed public opinion,’’ Lavrov underlined, reiterating Putin’s statement that ‘‘all the proposed changes will be within the framework of Russian Constitution.’’
