Content area
Full text
Russian permanent representative to NATO, Dmitriy Rogozin, was interviewed by well-known TV presenter Vladimir Pozner in his programme "Pozner" on Russian state-controlled Channel One TV on 5 December.
Summary
Rogozin said that political competition was essential for Russia to move forward, agreed that WikiLeaks could be a device to first build credibility by truthful reports and then present provocational reports aimed against Russia and other countries opposing the USA.
Speaking about himself, Rogozin revealed that although he had been accepted to study acting by the leading cinematography institute, he had changed his mind because he lost interest. His aspiration to work as a TV journalist in Ostankino studio following his cum laude graduation as a journalist had been thwarted because he lacked the right connections - his father's position would have been useful for a military career.
Rogozin also said that he had "dreamt of working in intelligence" and he had been about to start an intelligence career - he had passed all the tests, including the medical - but was turned down because his father-in-law was working in the KGB foreign intelligence directorate and Yuriy Andropov had issued an order not to accept children or in-laws as part of his fight against family clans in the service.
When commenting on the suggestion that he was a nationalist and a Russian chauvinist, he said on the French scale of nationalism he would be "a Russian Gaullist". Rogozin said that for many Western diplomats hypocrisy was a way of life and that this took him a year of getting used to but now "I often speak to them in their own language". Rogozin said that high-ranking European officials had privately told him about their serious concerns about immigration. He warned that excessive immigration could "demolish Europe in the future" and destroy the current political system that had been in place throughout the post-war period.
Rogozin said that Ukraine and Georgia had no chance of joining NATO. He noted internal disagreements in NATO and said that he saw his role in working inside the organization and not leaving the Americans and Europeans alone together. He described the Lisbon summit as a breakthrough, said NATO did not represent a threat for Russia and praised President Dmitriy Medvedev's honest...