MOSCOW, October 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he is going to convey the position of Russian human rights advocates, who think the decision to postpone the Petersburg dialogue forum is a mistake, to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"I will tell the chancellor about it, we will meet in Milan in a few days and have a talk," Putin said, commenting on the statement of the head of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC) Mikhail Fedotov who called the decision to postpone the forum a mistake.
"We need to speak to each other. In our history we have already had iron curtains, estrangement -we have already gone down that path. Why repeat this?" Fedotov said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian President said that a decision to postpone a Russian-German forum amid difficult relations with the European Union "makes certain sense."
"Given present conditions, amid difficult relations with Europe it would be better to postpone the Petersburg Dialogue in order not to damage this process," Putin said.
On Monday, the press service for The Petersburg Dialogue, said that the event, scheduled for late October, had been postponed.
The annual Petersburg dialogue forum was established in 2001 at the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder. The forum is aimed at increasing mutual understanding between Russia and Germany, further developing bilateral cooperation in various spheres and broadening contacts between the two nations.
