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WORLD NEWS 9
Tuesday 26 January 2016

UN envoy lowers expectations Putin denounces Soviet founder Lenin
ahead of Syrian talks on Friday
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a regional meeting of destructive legacy, Putin
JAMEY KEATEN pro-Kremlin United Peoples’ Front in Stavropol, on Monday, Jan. pointed at Donbass, the
Associated Press 25, 2016. Putin has criticized Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin for industrial region in eastern
GENEVA (AP) — Lowering expectations about his abil- placing a “time bomb” under the state and denounced brutal Ukraine where a pro-Russia
ity to help end Syria’s civil war, the U.N. special envoy repressions by the Bolshevik government. separatist rebellion flared
announced talks between government and opposi- up weeks after Russia’s
tion representatives will start on Friday to embark on a (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool/AP) March 2014 annexation of
six-month process that he hopes will include civil soci- Ukraine’s Crimean Penin-
ety and women’s groups. V. ISACHENKOV ment has no intention of sula. More than 9,000 peo-
Staffan de Mistura raised nearly as many questions Associated Press taking Lenin’s body out of ple have been killed in the
as he answered in a news conference in Geneva on MOSCOW (AP) — Russian his Red Square tomb, warn- conflict since April 2014,
Monday, the day when talks had originally been set President Vladimir Putin ing against “any steps that and clashes have contin-
to begin before tensions over who would be invited, on Monday criticized So- would divide the society.” ued despite a February
involving countries like Russia and Turkey, forced a de- viet founder Vladimir Lenin, Putin’s assessment of Len- 2015 peace deal.
lay. He also confirmed comments from U.S. Secretary accusing him of placing in’s role in Russian history He said that Lenin and his
of State John Kerry last week that the two main sides a “time bomb” under the during Monday’s meeting government whimsically
won’t meet face-to-face initially in the “proximity” state, and sharply de- with pro-Kremlin activists in drew borders between
talks. nouncing brutal repressions the southern city of Stav- parts of the U.S.S.R., placing
De Mistura insisted he was sticking to Security Council by the Bolshevik govern- ropol was markedly more Donbass under the Ukrai-
decisions to shun some groups like the Islamic State ment. negative than in the past. nian jurisdiction in order to
group and al-Qaida-affiliate Nusra Front, but refused The harsh criticism of Lenin, Putin denounced Lenin “increase the percentage
any clarification beyond that. He said invitations who is still revered by com- and his government for of proletariat” in a move
would go out Tuesday, but declined to specify his cri- munists and many others in brutally executing Russia’s Putin called “delirious.” Pu-
teria about deciding who receives them. Russia, is unusual for Putin, last czar along with all his tin’s criticism of Lenin could
“We want to make sure that when and if we start, to who in the past carefully family and servants, killing be part of his attempts to
start at least on the right foot,” said de Mistura, who weighed his comments thousands of priests and justify Moscow’s policy in
succeeded Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi as the about the nation’s history placing a “time bomb” the Ukrainian crisis, but it
top U.N. envoy for Syria. “It will be uphill anyway.” to avoid alienating some under the Russian state also may reflect the Krem-
The step-by-step approach testifies to the immense voters. by drawing administrative lin’s concern about pos-
difficulties that many diplomats and world powers At the same time, he sig- borders along ethnic lines. sible separatist sentiments
have faced in efforts to end the nearly five-year war naled that the govern- As an example of Lenin’s in some Russian provinces.
that has cost more than 250,000 lives, forced millions Putin was particularly criti-
to flee their homes to places like Europe, and opened cal of Lenin’s concept of
the way for IS to seize vast territory in Syria and Iraq. a federative state with its
“The first priority will be the focus of the talks of what entities having the right
most Syrians — if not all — want to hear: The possibility to secede, saying it heav-
of a broad cease-fire, and the possibility of stopping ily contributed to the 1991
the threat of ISIL, and therefore, thanks to a broader breakup of the Soviet
cease-fire, an increase of humanitarian aid,” he said, Union. “It was a time bomb
using another acronym for IS. under our state,” he said,
Learning from past failures and missteps, de Mistura adding that Lenin’s was
jettisoned an initiative of four “working groups” on var- wrong in a dispute with Jo-
ious aspects of Syria’s crisis led by Europeans which he sef Stalin who advocated
launched last summer. q a unitary state model.q