MOSCOW: Russian leader Vladimir Putin will meet Iran’s newly elected president in Tehran next month to discuss restarting talks on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, Russian and Iranian media reports said on Wednesday.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant quoted a source close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry as saying President Putin would visit on August 12, days after Hassan Rouhani is inaugurated.

Iran’s Mehr news agency said Putin would travel to Iran on August 16, without citing a source.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined comment on the reports. Putin last visited Iran in 2007 to attend a summit of states bordering the Caspian Sea.

World powers hope Iran’s relatively moderate new leader will comply with demands for Tehran to scale back nuclear work which they suspect is aimed at enabling it to make bombs.

Iran says it is enriching uranium, the fissile material for atomic bombs, only to fuel nuclear power stations and for medical purposes.

Once Rouhani takes office, Tehran’s hardline team in nuclear talks with six world powers is likely to be overhauled.

Although the president holds influence, Iran’s theocratic supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wields ultimate control over Iranian nuclear policy.

The last high-level talks between Iran and six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – were held in Kazakhstan in April. They failed to break the deadlock.

Moscow has proposed a compromise under which Tehran would be rewarded for scaling back on enrichment with concessions on international sanctions over the nuclear program.

Kommersant also cited a defense industry source as saying Putin could discuss an offer to replace frozen shipments of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Tehran with deliveries of Antey-2500 anti-ballistic missiles, an upgrade of the S-300s.

Russia scrapped an S-300 sale to Iran in 2010 after it came under international pressure not to complete the deal because of the sanctions.

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday accused the United States of trapping US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden in Moscow, saying he would leave Russia as soon as possible.

“As soon as there’s the chance to move somewhere he will certainly do this,” Putin said in his first public remarks since Snowden summoned several rights activists and lawyers for a dramatic meeting Friday at state-controlled Sheremetyevo airport.

Putin accused Washington of preventing Snowden from leaving Russia after the fugitive ex-intelligence analyst arrived from Hong Kong on June 23.

“He arrived on our territory uninvited, he did not fly to us, he was flying in transit to other countries,” Putin said in televised remarks.

“But as soon as he was in the air, it became known, and our American partners essentially blocked off his further flight.”

Snowden was checked in for a flight from Moscow to Havana, Cuba on June 24 but never boarded the plane.

“They themselves scared off all the other countries, no one wants to take him, and therefore they essentially themselves trapped him on our territory,” Putin said.

“A nice gift to us for Christmas,” the strongman president was quoted as saying by Russian reporters travelling with him on a visit to the island of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland.

Asked what will happen to Snowden, Putin said: “How would I know? That’s his life, his fate.”

But he also noted a change in position by Snowden, who said Friday he wanted to apply for asylum in Russia until he can travel on to Latin America.

The Russian president conspicuously refrained from indicating if or when he might grant asylum to the world’s most famous fugitive.

Putin said earlier this month that Snowden could claim asylum in Russia only if he stopped his leaks.

The condition initially prompted Snowden to withdraw his application, before the rights activists who met him on Friday said he had promised not to harm US interests in the future.

“Judging by his latest statement, he is somewhat changing his position, but the situation has not been finally clarified so far,” Putin said.

Russia’s Federal Migration Service said earlier Monday that it had not yet received an application from Snowden.

Putin, who is set to host US President Barack Obama for a bilateral summit in Moscow followed by the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg in early September, reiterated Russia’s refusal to damage ties with Washington for Snowden’s sake.

“‘We have certain ties with the United States. We do not want you through your activity to damage our ties with the States,'” he said he had told Snowden.

“He said ‘no’. You are laughing but I am serious,” added Putin, addressing a group of students.

He said Snowden had vowed to continue his activism.

“We said: ‘That will be without us, then. We have other battles to fight,'” he said with a smile.

Snowden, whose passport has been revoked by Washington, has been marooned in the airport’s transit zone for the past three weeks.

In a sign that Moscow may seriously consider an application from him, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, Sergei Naryshkin, said Friday that Snowden could apply for either temporary asylum or political asylum.

Requests for political asylum are reviewed by the Kremlin and granted by the president.

Observers have noted that Snowden’s Friday meeting did not include some figures likely to upset Putin, such as Russia’s best-known rights campaigners or organisations that deal with refugees.

But among those invited were figures such as Vyacheslav Nikonov, a lawmaker from ruling party United Russia, who would probably not have been known to Snowden before his arrival in Russia.

Washington has reacted sharply to the possibility that Moscow might offer Snowden a safe haven and accused it of providing him a “propaganda platform”.

In a rare appearance together on state television, Putin was asked about rumors that they no longer lived together and answered: “That is true.”

The announcement removes a big question mark about the private life of a president who has increasingly touted traditional values and championed the conservative Russian Orthodox Church as a moral authority.

Politically, Putin may have calculated that it was better to be seen coming clean about a separation many Russians have long taken as fact than to be suspected of hiding the truth or living a secret second life.

The couple looked nervous as they stood side by side in the Kremlin, speaking to a lone reporter. They referred to each other formally by first name and patronymic, adding a respectful but uncomfortable touch.

Putin smiled woodenly and nodded as Lyudmila spoke, though they both appeared more relaxed after making the announcement.

Lyudmila, a former airline stewardess five years younger than the 60-year-old president, said it had been “our common decision”.

“Our marriage is over due to the fact that we barely see each other,” she said. Putin also said it had been “a joint decision”.

The Putins married in 1983 and have two daughters, both in their 20s. The announcement came 13 months into a third presidential term for Putin, who came to power in 2000 and has not ruled out seeking re-election in 2018.

The couple have made only rare, sometimes awkward, appearances together over recent years, prompting media speculation that they had secretly divorced.

In 2008, Putin said there was no truth to a newspaper report that he was preparing to marry Olympic rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, who was born the same year he married Lyudmila.

Putin told journalists to keep their “snotty noses” out of his private life and the newspaper folded shortly afterwards. Kabayeva has dismissed speculation she had a child by Putin.

“DONE HER SHIFT”

Most Soviet and Russian first ladies have had low profiles, but Lyudmila Putin has been all but invisible in recent years and there has been speculation she had moved into a convent.

On Russian Orthodox Christmas in January this year and Easter in May, Putin attended televised midnight church services without Lyudmila.

The Putins spoke to Rossiya-24 TV after attending a ballet performance in the Kremlin, in what at first appeared to be a staged effort to show that they were still together.

After answering questions at length about the ballet, the Putins were asked about the rumors they lived apart.

“That is true. All my activity is linked to public affairs … and there are people who are totally incompatible with that,” Putin said. He added with a chuckle: “Lyudmila Alexandrovna has done her shift.”

Lyudmila said: “Vladimir Vladimirovich is completely submerged in his work. Our children have grown up, each of them is living her own life. … And I truly don’t like publicity.”.

Putin added: “Lyudmila Alexandrovna and I will always remain close – forever, I am sure.”

Neither clarified whether their marriage was legally dissolved, although Lyudmila said it was a “civilized divorce”. Putin’s spokesman said he did not know.

“They separated a long time ago,” Dmitry Peskov said. “I don’t know if the divorce has been formalized, but I can confirm that we are talking about a civilized divorce.”

Putin has made questions about his family taboo, jealously guarding information about his daughters, and it is highly unlikely the reporter asked the question without prompting. The remarks were first aired after prime time, after 9:30 p.m.

While the couple were widely assumed to be estranged, the unexpected admission set off a wave of comment on the Internet, a prominent platform for criticism of Putin in a nations whose mainstream broadcast media is controlled by the state.

“It’s time for the whole country to divorce him,” a group called For Honest Elections, which has used social network sites to help organize protests against Putin, said on its Twitter microblog.

Soviet and Russian leaders have faced little scrutiny over their family lives, and divorce is a fact of life. In 2011, about 1.3 million Russian couples marries and nearly 670,000 divorced, according to government figures.

GOOD MOVE?

Anna, a 26-year-old Muscovite who gave only her first name, praised Putin for a “good move”.

“When (former French president Nicolas) Sarkozy announced his divorce, I thought to myself, ‘This would just be impossible in this country.’ And now look what’s happening.”

However, she thought it would not play well in the provinces, where Putin’s main support base lies.

“I fear his ratings will go down further,” she said of Putin, whose approval rating fell to a 12-year low of 62 percent in January according to the independent Levada Center, but has since edged up.

Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition politician and a leader of a series of protests against Putin and the ruling party in the past 18 months, said he did not believe the timing was driven by political considerations.

“I don’t know why they announced it now, you’d better ask them. I can only say that even though lying all the time is Putin’s tradition, the fact that he found the courage to announce his divorce is an honest deed,” Nemtsov said.

HELSINKI (AP) — Vladimir Putin, banned in Finland?

Finnish police say the Russian president’s name was mistakenly placed on a secret criminal register that could have gotten him arrested at the border.

Finnish TV station MTV3 reported Wednesday that Putin was placed there for his contact with the Russian motorcycle gang Night Wolves, though he wasn’t suspected of a crime in Finland.

But National Police Board spokesman Robin Lardot told the AP the listing was a mistake and that Putin’s name was removed from the list. He says police were investigating how it got there. He declined further comment.

The content of the register is known only to a few top officials. Putin’s inclusion would be a major source of embarrassment in bilateral relations.

AMSTERDAM: President Vladimir Putin defended Russia’s treatment of homosexuals on Monday in Amsterdam, where 1,000 gay rights activists waved pink and orange balloons and blasted out dance music to press home their protest.

Western nations need Russia for energy and as a market for exports but are uneasy about Putin’s human rights policies and his treatment of opponents in his new Kremlin term.

Putin’s visit to the Netherlands and Germany, Moscow’s biggest trade partners in Europe, also comes at an awkward time after a wave of state inspections of foreign-funded non-governmental organizations in Russia that has been much criticized abroad.

In Amsterdam, Dutch and Russian companies signed a batch of energy deals and Putin met Queen Beatrix and Prime Minister Mark Rutte, while around 1,000 protesters blew whistles, played loud music, and waved the gay pride flag nearby in the city famous for its liberal attitude.

Putin, who laughed off a topless protest earlier in the day in Germany, said Russia did not discriminate against gay people.

“In the Russian Federation – so that it is clear to everybody – there is no infringement on the rights of sexual minorities,” he said.

“These people, like everyone else, enjoy all the same rights and freedoms as everyone else,” he told a news conference – held at Amsterdam’s Maritime Museum in a nod to the days when Peter the Great worked as a young man in an Amsterdam shipyard.

Russia’s parliament has given preliminary approval to a ban on “homosexual propaganda” targeting minors, which critics say would effectively ban gay rights demonstrations. The United States has said the legislation “severely restricts freedom of expression and assembly”.

Many houses and bridges in the historic canal district of Amsterdam were draped with banners and the rainbow flag of the gay pride movement, protesting about what human rights organizations say is institutional repression of gays in Russia.

“Putin go homo,” read one, echoing the message “Putin go home” on the front page of Friday’s NRC Next daily newspaper.

“I’m protesting against the anti-gay law in Russia because it’s unreal. You can’t tell people to go back into the closet,” said one protester, who gave his name as Connie Feather, dressed in a rainbow striped chiffon dress and blue feather boa.

Earlier, in Germany, three members of the women’s rights group Femen, which has protested against Russia’s detention of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot around Europe, disrupted his visit to a trade fair in the German city of Hanover.

They stripped to the waist and shouted slogans calling Putin a “dictator” before being bundled away by security men.

“Regarding this performance, I liked it,” grinned Putin at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “I did not catch what they were shouting, I did not even see if they were blondes, brunettes or chestnut-haired …”

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned foreign-funded non-government organizations against meddling in the country’s affairs.

Putin also angrily lashed out at recent U.S. criticism of the Russian-led post-Soviet alliances.
Speaking at a meeting with top officials of the main KGB successor agency, Putin mentioned what he described as “recent nervous statements about integration processes in the former Soviet lands.”

While Putin didn’t name any names, he appeared to refer to a statement by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said in December, while still in the job, that Russian-led regional alliances represent an attempt to restore the Soviet empire.

Putin has described the existing economic and security groupings of ex-Soviet nations as precursors to a stronger Eurasian Union, which he pledged to form by 2015. He insisted the new alliance would help Russia and its neighbors boost economic efficiency and compete more successfully in global markets.

Putin said Thursday that efforts at closer economic and political integration between Russia and its neighbors “can’t be stopped by shouts or calling down.” He told officials of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, they must be prepared to thwart foreign attempts to derail the integration plans.

“They may use various instruments of pressure, including mechanisms of the so-called ‘soft power,'” he said. “The sovereign right of Russia and its partners to build and develop its integration project must be safely protected.” Putin, who won a third presidential term in a vote last March, has taken a tough posture toward Washington, accusing the U.S. State Department of fomenting protests against his rule in order to weaken Russia.

After Putin’s inauguration in May, the Kremlin-controlled parliament quickly rubber-stamped a series of repressive laws that sharply hiked fines for taking part in unauthorized protests, extended the definition of high treason and required non-government organizations that receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents,” a term that sounds synonymous to spies in Russian. Leading Russian NGOs have vowed to ignore the bill, which also allows an unlimited number of inspections and checks that could paralyze the activities of NGOs.

Putin on Thursday strongly defended the bill in language that reflected the Kremlin’s view of NGOs as an instrument of Western pressure.

“No one has the monopoly of speaking on behalf of the entire Russian society, let alone the structures directed and funded from abroad and thus inevitably serving foreign interests,” he said. “Any direct or indirect meddling in our internal affairs, any forms of pressure on Russia, on our allies and partners is inadmissible.”

While Putin avoided direct reference to the U.S., FSB director Alexander Bortnikov said, according to Russian news agencies, that Washington and its allies last year “raised geopolitical pressure on Russia, whom they continue to view as a major rival in the international arena.”

Putin said the FSB last year exposed 34 foreign intelligence officers and 181 of their agents. He didn’t name the countries they were spying for.