Russia rejects 'stupid' calls to strip it of 2014 Olympics
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 23:35:00 09/03/2008
MOSCOW—Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday rejected as "stupid" calls for Russia to be stripped of the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics over its actions in Georgia.
"It is stupid and damaging to politicize sport," Lavrov said when asked by journalists about a proposal, discussed in the European parliament and by US lawmakers, to strip Russia of the right to host the Olympics.
"Decisions on holding the Olympics are taken not by any state or groups of states, not by any parliament, but exclusively by the members of the International Olympic Committee," Lavrov said.
"This decision has already been taken," he added.
Individual lawmakers in both the United States and in the European parliament have called for Russia to be stripped of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi over its invasion of Georgia last month and recognition of two rebel Georgian regions as independent.
Speaking at a news conference in Moscow with Belgian counterpart Karel De Gucht, Lavrov said Russia was keen to remove its troops still stationed in Georgia.
But he said that first it was necessary to create international mechanisms -- to be the subject of international talks -- for maintaining security.
"We want as soon as possible the fulfillment of the Sarkozy-Medvedev plan," he said, referring to a French-brokered peace plan.
"It's written in black and white in this plan that until international mechanisms are created, Russian peacekeepers should take additional security measures," Lavrov said.
Russia has kept troops not only round the South Ossetia separatist region that was the focus of last month's fighting, but also near the naval port of Poti, fuelling Georgian claims that Moscow is trying to dismember its southern neighbor.
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