this is a very difficult issue in just a moment but. minister. to you. additional details about human rights yes thank you. international law or national law. well international law first of all the geneva convention on the status of asylum seekers. refugees and. countries. safeguard the rights of citizens citizens. expedite the procedure of granting citizenship to people seeking asylum so there is an international requirement and as. we've said on the basis of the application we

have. expedite the process i think you think of it. was just been bringing you live thirty egypt from the ecuadorian capital quito where the press conference is being held discussing the case of julian a song the wiki leaks chief has in recent days been granted an ecuadorian id cards are some people who think this is a step in the direction of ending his five year confinement in the ecuadorian embassy in london of course now the ecuadorian foreign minister explained that her son had applied for citizenship to the country in two thousand and sixteen and ecuador has assessed his case or thought of course being an australian citizen she said that ecuador are currently looking at ways to promote dialogue and mediation with the u.k. foreign office and they will continue to resolve the situation a way that will satisfy satisfy all involved parties and in a way that will comply with international law. ok we're now going to

take you to president putin who is now addressing a panel of russian journalists let's listen in life you think it's a very interesting and complex profession. it is complex and sometimes even a dangerous as unfortunate as it is but still it is very much in demand. so happy holiday and my best wishes to all of your colleagues at your to all the people working in the printed media in digital media. to all those working online. in a meeting in general with us here. you have some very interesting people working in your professional creative people sometimes very talented so i really hope that they will use all their talents. for the benefit of

the russian people so happy holiday this concludes my short introductory speech now let's just talk as we usually do. thank you mr president for visiting come some. have a question for you. not as a president as a presidential candidate. this year i think we'll have a record number of people running for president what do you think of this fact that we have so many candidates running. even though do you think it's encouraging or on the contrary how do you feel running against fifteen rivals you know i think it's ok you know i think it's good to deal with. this period as easy as you can which this is this campaign period everybody's nerves during this time usually

because you have a lot of pleasant things emerge in during this time but to still it's good it's an opportunity for people to speak out discuss the problems that russia is facing to be discussed different ways offered by different people to address those problems so i think on the whole it's useful this refreshes the dialogue the most important thing is that everything should be done within the law and. everybody should abide by ethical norms so that's the key thing rather than. all those complaints just by a little. problems i just mentioned i think they're force for good so i. am encouraged and i will be happy to see some nice and the useful. proposals on the how we should develop. with you mr president i

would like to continue. with the subject of elections i would see it was not allowed to run. immediately as you know. we heard some criticism from washington and from some european countries as well. so i would like to ask you what do you personally think. about this. and what is your position on the situation. first of all i'd like to say. that nobody likes it when other countries meddle in their internal affairs especially our u.s. friends here we saw their reaction. and what even. substantiated claims about our meddling call aggressive their

response was. the usual practice of u.s. campaigns is that they don't let anybody. in the most and i think that has been going on with the russian media they declare them foreign agents and they pose certain restrictions on their work there and they do this in a rather aggressive manner this. vivid example of how they reacted to other countries influencing their the mastic paul sic politics especially during the electoral cycle and they do this very thing themselves and they think it's not. and i think it's wrong. if they. meddle in other countries or fears they should be a really that. they should be able to respond to certain

challenges that they didn't so let's have provoked. please don't misunderstand me i'm not saying that we are meddling anywhere we have no intention of meddling but i'm just saying that nobody likes it when. other people meddle in their affairs but they like to meddle themselves very much that the first thing i would like to say i think it was the u.s. congress and then the state department that. reacted to the fact that somebody was not allowed to registers can in that second person you mentioned the character you mentioned was the only one who was not allowed to run but they don't mention other people so i think the u.s. administration has certain preferences in other countries have their proffer insist this is this way they indicate the person whom they would like to promote into the political sphere of russia somebody they would like to have at the

helm in russia these are people that they rely on i think so they gave him out by saying that. they made a mistake but the most important thing is not that. is not who's allowed to run who is not. that's not the important thing the important thing is that. we should realize that it's unacceptable to violate the law especially during the election campaign. we just recently celebrated new year's day man is standing. somewhere north and there and the president of ukraine. as many ukrainian media indicates indicated went to the maldives rented the whole island there. and

he was showing to ukraine there at the same time we have the dumbass conflict with millions of people who did not recognize the coup that took place since he of the and the future of those peoples is i mean. he's a rather bleak we don't get any good news from the don't bus recently there was a prisoner swap even though it was not complete but other than that there are clashes people get killed almost every day watson does the dumbass have a future is it a frozen conflict which is i think europe is ready to forget it this conflict and what is the end game there i think russia also does not have enough room for maneuver what do you think we first of all as far as new year's day is concerned and all the other holidays i always stay you know russia for holidays that's my

tradition and it's just and i don't want to go anywhere. and i spend new year's day at home and then i travel to said bierria for a couple of days and it was really frosty there thirty three below zero but i enjoy this kind of weather it was the right now as regards the ukrainian president i don't know where he spent new year's day but i don't think there's anything wrong with that for a president to travel abroad and spend some time with his family but he's country is at war and he went to the mall dives well i don't know about that so it's hard for me to comment on this fact he said. a wealthy person so he can afford to take his family abroad to the maldives or some other islands. now as regards. the prospects of a settlement in the us the conflict. situation there looks pretty much like

a frozen conflict then nobody wants that including russia we would like to resolve the situation but we would like to resolve the situation in a way that. people who live in this territory are not concerned i'm not going to disappear the thing but i would like to repeat something that i said elsewhere a number of times from russia would be quite happy if the minsk agreements are fully implemented not selectively. the entire package. would make people living in the done that had been looting everything and that includes including bill on this special status of the donbass that's number two number three on our relations with the ukraine in general the situation it is very a normal situation where instead of constructive relations between the two close countries countries are basically parts of the

same people it's normal to have this situation like the one we have today so i really expect that once the issue of the donbass resold then sooner or later this is going to happen i don't have any doubts about that. relations between russia and ukraine will be normalized so as you know. in twenty fourteen years we even started. returning military hardware we sent a few trains from the crimea to ukraine and the ukraine raised this issue. a number of times getting their military hardware from the crimea back i would like to take this opportunity to mention that we are ready to continue this process we are ready to. handle were. warships tanks

armor and aircraft that used to being in the crimea to ukraine and of course it's in poor shape but that's not our problem we're talking about dozens of warships and dozens of. fighter jets there with the warships i think it would be better for. the ukrainian serious men to just come and pick them up and we would be willing to help them transport to those ships to death. and also there is a lot of ammunition. but our military experts believe that this. munition dumps should not be moved they shewed be destroyed where they are and we would invite ukrainian military specialists to participate in. dismantling and destroying those munitions so these are just some initial steps despite all the difficulties between russia and ukraine.

last year a significantly. this is a good sign. this means that we have. pretty good resources for resuming our relations normalizing them with the mr bush and i like to talk about certain things issues. the issue of the way. personnel basically. personnel and management and the issue of social lifts which is especially important for young people. thought of the advisory board to own the young leaders of russia and. with these we were expecting seven to eight thousand people to participate. in this event that we were holding and. then we decided to have maybe ten thousand but we had two hundred thousand double occasions

and now we have we have the finals and the people who will. win they will bill they will receive one million roubles for their enterprises so. you give more. so this. really believe that this is an important thing for our work for maintaining this social lives and the second. question is whether you will continue work with this regard and when you do you personally look at how these events are being held. let me start with the last part of your question i have been following this competition. and i think the way it is organized and it's free so.