PRESS RELEASE
Putin the Statesman Meets Obama the Narcissist
Nov. 21, 2016 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barak Obama met on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, yesterday, for all of four minutes. Putin, as always, was very statesmanlike about it.
"[O]ur dialogue was not always easy, there were difficult moments and working together was not always a straightforward process, but nonetheless, as President Obama and I both noted, we always had respect for each other and for each other’s positions,"
he said, during a press conference, later, according to the transcript posted on the Kremlin website.
"I thanked him for these years of work together and said that we would be happy to see him in Russia at any time, whenever he feels the need or desire to visit."
Obama, on the other hand, remains an unreconstructed narcissist, intent on lecturing others on how to behave, even after his presidency has been rejected by the American voters.
"The President urged President Putin to uphold Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements, underscoring the U.S. and our partners’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty,"
a White House official told Reuters.
Russian television coverage of the Putin-Obama mini-exchange, however, had a different account, which was backed up by video footage. It was Putin who approached Obama during a break in the summit to have a one-on-one talk, and it was Putin who raised the urgency of fully implementing Minsk II, and who additionally pressed for the United States and Russia to maintain the Kerry-Lavrov negotiations, seeking a solution to the Syria war and a resolution of the Ukraine situation.
During his press conference, Putin was also asked about his phone call, last week, with President-elect Donald Trump. He noted that Trump had "reiterated his desire to normalize our bilateral relations," and that "we seek the same."
"We did not discuss a specific date for a meeting but said it could be useful, perhaps, to organize a meeting between representatives of our staffs,"
Putin went on.
"We see that the U.S. president-elect is still in the active process of putting together his own team. It would be difficult to organize a meeting even between members of our staffs right now when he has not yet finished putting his official team together. Let us wait for now. There will be time."
