PARIS, June 3 (RIA Novosti, Andrei Nizamutdinov) - The Yukos controversy gives no grounds at all for apprehensions about revision of privatization results in Russia. "I don't think there is any reason for alarm," said Sergei Naryshkin, Russian government chief of staff.
He is taking part in a seminar on French-Russian partnership development in Paris.
However, the oil giant's case certainly has an impact on foreign investors' opinion of Russia, he said. Naryshkin expressed hope that the affair would not be re-enacted with other companies.
"Fiscal and property violations were on the surface there [in the Yukos affair], and the state surely could not ignore them," Naryshkin said.
"I think it gives food for thought to government bodies and all taxpayers. It brings one point home to them: taxes must be paid."
Foreign investors have no grounds to be apprehensive about their future in Russia, he said, adding: "We must be realistic. We have to acknowledge that the events around Yukos have influenced the Western business community's perception of terms for activities in Russia."
"We all want things as that to come as rarely as possible, and I hope they will never repeat," Naryshkin said.
Moscow's Meschansky district court sentenced two defendants on the Yukos affair, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, to nine years of general-security imprisonment each on May 30.
Khodorkovsky is former Yukos CEO and Lebedev is head of the Menatep transnational financial group, with major interests in Yukos.
