DIRECTOR GENERAL OF "GAZPROM-MEDIA" ALFRED KOKH TO EXPLAIN THE SITUATION AROUND THE NTV








WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 2001 (FROM RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT ARKADY ORLOV) -- Director general of "Gazprom-Media" Alfred Kokh will explain his position to American political and business circles in Washington at a seminar devoted to the situation obtained around the "Media-Most" holding and the NTV TV channel. The seminar is being conducted by a well-known pro-Republican Nixon centre, honourable chairman of which is former US State Secretary Henry Kissinger.


	The efforts of Gazprom to receive 200 million dollars which "Media-Most" owes it was so far "widely explained in the American mass media as a part of the efforts of the Russian authorities to close the NTV and other opposition mass media headed by Gusinsky". But Alfred Kokh, who has been occupying the post of director general of "Gazprom-Media" since 2000, has a different opinion, a spokesman for the Nixon centre pointed out.


	On Wednesday Alfred Kokh will also meet in Washington with a group of representatives of the leading US mass media.


	According to the press service of the US-Russian chamber of commerce and industry, which is based in Chicago and which is the organiser of this meeting, the US often regards the attempts of Gazprom to receive the debt of the "Media-Most" as the striving of the Russian authorities to jeopardise the freedom of the press. Kokh is going to explain the real state of affairs, noted the spokesman for the chamber.