| MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin is concerned about
the damage an intense
conflict between prosecutors and oil giant OAO Yukos is doing to Russia's
image and economy, but a resolution to the situation could take time, a
senior Russian official said Tuesday.
"His reaction is negative. He understands that the events are doing
systemic harm," said the official, insisting on anonymity. "The
political
task is to get out of this situation as soon as possible," he added.
"The
president has given all the necessary signals repeatedly."
Publicly, Mr. Putin hasn't directly commented on the conflict, which
began
July 2 with the arrest of Platon Lebedev, a billionaire Yukos shareholder
and chairman of the big Menatep financial group, on fraud charges related
to the 1994 privatization of a fertilizer company. He remains in jail
in
Moscow. Prosecutors have since opened a range of other investigations
into
Yukos executives, including a murder probe. Yukos officials deny any
wrongdoing and say the charges are politically motivated.
The sudden prosecutorial focus on Yukos has jolted Russia's stock market,
knocking about $7 billion off the value of Yukos and reversing a major
rally in Russian stocks as investors worried that the other privatization
deals that lie at the base of many of the country's largest companies
could
be questioned. It's also shaken foreign investors' confidence in Russia,
according to Russian and foreign officials, casting doubt on the relative
political and economic stability that had been the main fruits of Mr.
Putin's presidency.
Tuesday, the official said Mr. Putin will not allow a wholesale review
of
the privatizations of the 1990s, most of which were conducted in haste
during a period of constantly changing and often-contradictory laws.
"What we have to do now is gradually get away from that period
of
privatization without allowing a review of what happened and ensure the
observance of the rules of the game now," the official said. The
government
is considering some kind of amnesty or shortening of the statute of
limitations on privatization deals to help smooth the transition, he said,
noting that many legal issues remain to be worked out.
Yukos has said it is caught up in a conflict between factions within
the
Kremlin vying for power ahead of presidential elections in March, but
the
Russian official Tuesday said the presidential administration isn't the
source of the attack on the company. He rejected suggestions by outside
analysts that the Kremlin was using the conflict in an attempt to restrain
the political ambitions of Yukos or Chief Executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Instead, the official said Yukos has been targeted either by competitors,
who took advantage of corruption in the prosecutor's office to have the
investigations opened, or by a faction within the prosecutor's office
itself that didn't realize the consequences of its actions. He said Mr.
Putin found out about the probes only when Mr. Lebedev was arrested.
Because the probes are legal, the official said, Mr. Putin can't intervene
directly without seeming to be meddling in the judicial process. He also
can't be too publicly supportive of big business given strong public
resentment of Russia's business barons, the official said.
"These situations are usually easier to get into than they are
to get out
of," the official said.
Since the arrest, Mr. Putin has limited his public comments to general
statements that people suspected of economic crimes shouldn't be jailed
before trial. Earlier Tuesday, he told law-enforcement officials in the
Kremlin that economic investigations need to be conducted with an eye
to
the rights of citizens and not in the form of a campaign. "Methods
and
means of work should be suited to your tasks and strengthen the economy,"
he said in remarks shown on Russian television.
The sudden prosecutorial focus on Yukos has jolted Russia's stock market,
knocking about $7 billion (a,¬6.1 billion) off the value of Yukos
and
reversing a major rally in Russian stocks.
See also:
YUKOS
Case
| 