MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - The United States' funding of democracy development in Russia looks like interference in Russian domestic political affairs and that funding should come from Russia's own purse, a member of parliament's lower house said Friday. "Relevant support for these organizations should come from the Russian budget," Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said.
Kosachev said there was only one way to relieve Russian non-governmental organizations from the temptation to accept the money and that was for the money to be provided domestically.
He said the purpose of U.S.-allocated funds has not always corresponded to Russia's interests, but has always corresponded to U.S. interests. He also said the U.S. Senate has not always coordinated money allocations with Russia.
Kosachev said political parties represented in the lower house of the Russian parliament (now there are four of them: pro-presidential United Russia, Gennady Zyuganov's Communist Party, the Homeland popular-patriotic party led by Dmitry Rogozin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal-Democratic Party) should consider this issue.
This week, the U.S. Senate approved budget appropriations for the U.S. State Department for 2006 at $32 billion. From this sum, $85 million is designed to assist democracy and economic reforms in Russia, while $5 million dollars will be spent on the political party development program in Russia.
