BBC Newsnight aired an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on tv last night. The realaudio file can be found here, and a text report here.
Lavrov – who speaks very good English, by the way – got a grilling from Jeremy Paxman on the sale of weapons to Syria, whether Syria should withdraw from Lebanon, why Russia is selling nuclear material to Iran, and the state of democracy in Russia. It only runs to six minutes, and is well worth checking out.
My favourite question, towards the end of the interview, has to be this one:
[After pointing out that 90-95% of Chechens voted for Putin]
"Now, the only person who gets that kind of turnout is someone like Saddam Hussein, isn’t it?"
Sadly, Lavrov didn’t find it within himself to rise to the bait. But he did come up with a couple of memorable replies of his own:
[On selling nuclear fuel to Iran]
The US, France, UK & Germany fully understand what we are doing in Iran. They don’t have any complaints about it.
[On putting Yukos CEO Khodorkovsky on trial]
"Enron managers are waiting for trial. Parmalat managers are waiting for trial. Elf managers in France are waiting for trial. Just today a gentleman called, uh, Anderson, Walt Anderson, was arrested in the US for not paying some half-billion dollar taxes, and this is not considered a retreat from democracy."
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