#9
US Denial of Visa to Russia's Zhirinovskiy Seen Linked
to Comments on Iraq
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
17 July 2002
[translation for personal use only]
Report by Maksim Makarychev: "Multistory America
Turns Aside from Zhirinovskiy"
On Tuesday [16 July] the American authorities refused to issue a visa for
entry to US territory to Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader and State
Duma Vice Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovskiy.
Vladimir Volfovich was intending to go to America in two months' time, to
deliver a speech to the Russophone community on 18 September in the Millenium
Theater, which is in New York's Brooklyn district.
The refusal to allow Vladimir Zhirinovskiy to enter the United States has
presented the people trying to set up his appearance with a problem. The point
is that the organizers of the function have been forced to announce its
cancellation. This in turn has led to financial difficulties for the hosts,
since approximately two thousand tickets costing $30 to $50 each have already
been sold for Zhirinovskiy's September appearance.
The US Embassy in the Russian Federation issued the following statement: We
can neither confirm nor deny the fact as reported; that is, we cannot comment on
this situation. This is because it relates to a private individual, and under
American law it cannot be made public without his consent.
It is easy to conjecture that this latest refusal to issue Vladimir
Zhirinovskiy with a visa to enter US territory could be linked to his friendly
relations with the Iraqi leadership, which the American administration so yearns
to see overthrown. Especially since, at the big arms and military equipment
exhibition in Nizhniy Tagil last week, Vladimir Volfovich described White House
head George Bush's recent statement about the need to overthrow Saddam Husayn as
a piece of propaganda. Zhirinovskiy implied that the US leadership needs new
military operations right now because, in his view, the US President is backed
by "a military-industrial complex that needs new orders".
The Americans' response was not long in coming. In the New World, such things
are not forgiven.
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