Excerpts from Reuters interview with Russian president: Part 4

Following is the fourth and final part of translated excerpts from Reuters interview with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, conducted earlier this week at the Kremlin:

REUTERS: State control over media has been a feature of Putin's presidency. Will you continue this course or bring about changes? Will independent TV channels emerge in Russia?

MEDVEDEV: Firstly, I cannot agree with you that this was some kind of typical feature of my predecessor's presidency or of someone else who has held this post in Russian lately. We have no special controls on media which are different from those forms of control which exist in other countries.

As far as media is concerned, I had a chance to say this more than once that electronic media, print media and the so-called new media like Internet are absolutely free.

Of course, their editorial policy is decided by their owners. If it is about privately-owned media, they (owners) decide the policy. State-run channels have appropriate editorial councils.

But I cannot believe that these editorial councils, these management bodies conduct any specific policy. I believe we have an absolutely mature, modern television, which shows life in Russia in all its diversity, shows all political figures present on the current Russian political scene, shows problems and achievements.

In this sense - I have said this and am ready to say this to you - I believe our television is pretty mature and of good quality. I find it interesting to watch it. I think a considerable amount of people agree with me.

But those who do not like, say, some specific programs or channels -- thank God we are living in a free society -- can switch to other channels, can view foreign channels, private channels, can open a newspaper, get onto the Internet and get whatever they wish. There are not today, have not been in the past and will never be problems of closedness of information in Russia. You may have no doubts about this.

Every country has its political losers who complain there is no free media because they aren't on television every day. But that is their problem, not a problem for the media.

REUTERS: Taking a step back, I want to ask you a question about corruption. Could you say what specific measures you are going to take to fight corruption?

MEDVEDEV: It is a very painful and difficult problem for our country. Unfortunately, our traditions are not terribly good in this sense. I have said more than once and will repeat that neglect of the law, so-called legal nihilism, has deep roots in the national conscience. We will have to fight hard against this.

As regards corruption, as a combination of crimes that paralyses state mechanisms in many cases, such a threat can only be handled by a systemic response. And we have such a response -- I am not saying it will be ideal. Today we are preparing key points of what we call our anti-corruption plan. What is this? This is a combination of several systemic measures.

Firstly, these are legal measures, that is preparing a set of special laws including a separate law on fighting corruption.

Secondly, these are economic institutions which should block corruption, including special rules concerning the way officials handle documents and citizens. This is also the creation of economic motivation for officials not to commit corruption- related crimes.

Generally speaking, there is nothing new. Such motivation has been created in many countries and the level of corruption there considerably reduced because it is pretty obvious that 100 years ago practically all states faced this problem as they started developing the basis of a fully-fledged market economy.

And thirdly, it's about ideals, and trying to affect people psychologically. I am talking about developing good stereotypes of law-abiding behavior among the people. We are not going to do it as some kind of primitive state propaganda. But nevertheless, we really should help people to be guided by law in their actions, rather than any other instincts.

This is the most complicated thing, but we intend to handle it. This could be the third element of the anti-corruption plan.

You know, since the time people started using safety belts, the ones they use in cars, a need to fasten them has become part of peoples' conscience. It is there in their mentality and cannot be changed by any bans. Unfortunately not everyone fastens their belts in our country.

REUTERS: Thank you very much for such an interesting conversation.