The leader of Yabloko Grigory Yavlinsky said that, despite the differing assessments of the situation around the NTV by his party and the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), this won't affect Yabloko's intention to form a coalition with the SPS. "Nothing new has happened here to us. As in the past, to resolve fundamental issue, we want to create a functioning coalition of two strong independent parties which have their own views and which differ in many aspects and in many aspects coincide," said Yavlinsky in an interview on the "Ekho Moskvi" radio station on April 14, 2001. Commenting on the situation around NTV, Yavlinsky noted that first of all "the supreme judicial bodies have to ascertain whether the decisions of the shareholders of NTV [which took place on April 3, 2001] had a legal foundation." "I presume, that there are serious doubts about the lawfulness of these decisions," noted Yavlinsky.

Yavlinsky also expressed his belief that there was still an opportunity for a just resolution of this conflict. He said: "if the court rules that the decision of the shareholders' meeting was unlawful, then everything will return to the starting point, and it will prove possible to examine the whole situation again.'

Asked whether it was possible that "the baton of NTV would be handed to TV-6 (Ed. Boris Berezovsky's channel)," the leader of Yabloko noted that one should not expect the rebirth of NTV on this channel.

Asked about his attitude to a possible transfer of Evgeny Kiselyov (Ed. Ex-Chairman of the Board and popular anchorman of NTV) to TV-6 , Yavlinsky said that "things should not be decided as they are today, where the TV stars and bosses agree on the future of a large team." He added: "There should be no agreements between the bosses, and all the nomenclature transfers and appointments should be stopped, everybody should become equal and should together resolve the issue from the point of view of better conditions for their creative work."

He also noted that "any politician who enjoyed even minimum support in the country could express his point of view quite regularly" on the NTV channel. "Today such a thing is not possible on any of the state channels," added Yavlinsky.

See also:

NTV Case