By Itar-Tass World Service writer Tamara Zamyatina ¶ ¶ MOSCOW, March 17. /ITAR-TASS/. There is not a slightest doubt about the democratic and free nature of the expression of will by people in Crimea, who voted Sunday in a referendum on the status of that Autonomous Republic, Andrei Klimov, a deputy chairman of the foreign policy committee in the upper house of Russian parliament told Itar-Tass Sunday.
He commented on a yet another warning from the U.S. Administration that Washington would not recognize the results of the Crimean referendum, as the American officials found it to be illegitimate.
In fact, Sunday’s referendum in Crimea had more legitimacy than presidential elections in the U.S., Andrei Klimov said, adding: ”Compared with Crimea, the U.S. gets far more dubious results at its elections of the head of state, since it is not the politician who gets the majority of people’s vote but, rather, the one enjoying support of the electors committees that emerges victorious from an election.”
“On the face of it, what we saw in Crimea was a direct expression of citizens’ will - a system that the Americans might stand to benefit from,” he said.
Klimov believes that “the people of any territory on the globe should have the right to determine its destiny independently.” “Whatever the situation, the people of Crimea didn’t give the right to choose destiny-making options for themselves either to Washington or to Brussels,” he said.
“A statement by White House press secretary the referendum in Crimea stands at variance with the Ukrainian Constitution and hence the U.S. rejects it is all too obvious,” Klimov said. “The thing is the White House is playing on the side of the new coalition in Kiev and the U.S. always supports only the ‘democracy’ that serves its national interests.”
He also commented on the threats of sanctions against a number of Russian officials and state companies, allegedly involved in the situation in Ukraine, that Republican Senator John McCain, the chairman of Senate foreign policy committee Robert Menendez and Republican Senator Bob Corker had come up with.
“As long as I can remember - and I am a child from the Cold War generation - America has always promised nothing but sanctions to the Russians,” Klimov said. “They’ve been playing the same tune for many long decades.”
“Two great nuclear powers, the U.S. and Russia, should think in earnest about the future world structure,” he believes. “All the rest is just lyrical fantasies.”
Sunday, Andrei Klimov was working in Geneva at the 130th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union where the majority of Western countries except the U.S. are taking part.
The Ukrainian delegation was getting ready to make public a draft statement on the referendum in Crimea on behalf of the assembly Monday. On the face of it, “members of the Russian delegation are telling their counterparts on what is taking place in Crimea and in Ukraine in reality.”
“We are doing extensive and useful work to strengthen security and promote democracy worldwide,” Klimov said.