BBC Monitoring Putin explains Russia's Islamic ambitions Source: Channel One TV, Moscow, in Russian 1400 gmt 14 Aug 03
[Presenter] Russia is ready to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), as an observer for the time being. Twenty million Russians living in our country have every right to consider themselves part of the Islamic world, the president said today. [Passage omitted]
[Correspondent] Today the president discussed the idea of joining this organization with the Russian envoy for links with Islamic organizations, Veniamin Popov.
[Putin] Nearly 20m Muslims living in Russia are fully entitled to feel themselves part of the Islamic world. And in many other countries of the world, for example Western European countries, there is also a large Muslim population, but they are either immigrants or children of immigrants, unlike Russia where our citizens, our Muslims, regard Russia as the only motherland they have, rather than one they have obtained anew, like immigrants in Western Europe. So for our part we must do everything to ensure that they feel themselves part of the Muslim world, and live according to the appropriate rules, meaning the obligations Russia must take on, including if it joins the OIC, and there are responsibilities there, including financial ones.
[Popov] The first stage does not envisage any compulsory contributions, although it is possible and likely, but they are very small.
[Correspondent] According to Popov, the Islamic world has been keen to welcome this initiative by Russia.
[Popov] This is a step of tremendous importance for our Muslims, and that is how it will be viewed within the country. It is especially important that our culture has always had a great, Russia has always had a great, because our culture is an alloy of various ethnic groups and religious confessions, not only ethnic Russians, but everybody else as well [sentence as broadcast]. That is how it happened historically. [Passage omitted]