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Russia slams U.S. diplomats it says joined protest

MOSCOW, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Russia's Foreign Ministry slammed U.S. diplomats in the Pacific port of Vladivostok for taking part in protests to demand the release of journalist Grigory Pasko, Russian news agencies reported on Monday.

But the U.S. embassy in Moscow said the two staff members had merely attended the demonstration as observers and had not acted inappropriately in any way.

A military court convicted Pasko of high treason in December and sentenced him to four years' jail for telling Japanese media the Russian navy had dumped toxic waste in the Sea of Japan.

Last week, dozens of people staged a protest rally outside the Vladivostok offices of the FSB domestic security service, which brought the case against Pasko. A former navy captain, Pasko was a journalist with the Pacific Fleet's newspaper at the time of his arrest in 1997.

Interfax news agency said a Foreign Ministry note sent to the U.S. embassy in Moscow accused U.S. diplomats of taking part in the rally and making inappropriate public statements about the Russian judicial system.

A Foreign Ministry official quoted by Interfax said the note had called the U.S. diplomats' behaviour "a breach of generally recognised international norms."

Itar-Tass agency quoted the message as saying the incident could force the ministry to take "corresponding measures in the relationship with American diplomats." It gave no details.

The Foreign Ministry was not immediately available for comment.

U.S. embassy spokesman Thomas Leary told Ekho Moskvy radio station the two men from the U.S. consulate in Vladivostok went to the demonstration as observers, which he described as "normal diplomatic practice."

He denied they had made any inappropriate comments about the Russian judicial system, adding that all statements made by U.S. diplomats during the protest "only put across the position of the U.S. administration on this issue."

Concern about media freedom in Russia emerged after Vladimir Putin became Russian president two years ago.

NTV, a private television station critical of Putin, softened its hostile reporting of the Kremlin after being taken over by the state-dominated gas giant Gazprom.

Last week TV-6, the only national TV network outside Kremlin control, lost its battle to overturn a closure order, prompting its owner, self-exiled Boris Berezovsky, to accuse the Kremlin of trying to crush dissent.