Reports on KGB revival false

MOSCOW: The KGB secret service is not being revived in Russia, says former Kremlin chief of staff Sergey Ivanov .

Ivanov, a confidant of President Vladimir Putin, said reports that a new ministry of state security was being set up along the lines of the much-feared Soviet-era body were false. Various bodies would continue to work separately on investigations, counter-espionage and security, Ivanov told Komsomolskaya Pravda daily. “I don’t see any sense in having a super ministry,” said Ivanov, who in August switched portfolios to transport and the environment after working for four years as chief of staff of the presidential administration.

Kommersant daily had earlier reported that the Kremlin was planning to reform the security forces – especially the FSB domestic secret service – before the next presidential election in 2018. The newspaper reported that the plans included a new ministry of state security that would be able to lead investigations in special criminal cases and have other powers similar to the old KGB.

There was a ministry of state security in Moscow between 1946 and 1953, the predecessor to the KGB (Committee for State Security).

Putin worked as a KGB agent in the former East Germany. The KGB was dissolved in 1991 and replaced by the FSB, for which Putin was the director in Moscow from 1998 to 1999. – dpa