PRESS RELEASE
Lavrov: U.S.-Russian Relations Hostage to ‘Fit of McCarthyism’
Dec. 26, 2017 (EIRNS)—Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency (the parent company of Sputnik and RIA) asked Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov if there were any news on a possible meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin to discuss North Korea, when they interviewed him on Dec. 25, 2017. And, they asked, whether personal contacts between the Presidents were the only way to prevent the countries from "slipping into a new Iron Curtain situation?"
Lavrov answered that "the date of the next one-on-one meeting has not been discussed yet," but "contacts between the Presidents of Russia and the United States have intensified recently," and their discussions "cover a wide range of bilateral and international matters." Dialogue occurs on other levels, as well, such as between himself and Secretary of State Tillerson, between the special services, etc.
There are many problems in our relations, "both old and new or, more precisely, artificially created ones," however, he said. He elaborated:
"The main one is Russophobic hysteria which engulfed the Washington political establishment and took on a paranoid dimension, without exaggeration....
"I do not think, however, that the term Iron Curtain is applicable to Russia-U.S.relations at their current stage. Rather, we can talk about another fit of McCarthyism, which the American society, it turns out, is still susceptible to. Personally, I am sure, that similar to the witch-hunt engineered by Senator McCarthy, with which everyone was fed up, in the current situation, everyone will see things for what they really are followed by recovery. However, it would be true to say that time was wasted.
"For our part, we are acting in a pragmatic manner. We respond to aggressive attacks, but we are not going to spur the confrontation."
Russia will keep working
"to get our colleagues in Washington back to the fundamental principles which should form the basis for bilateral dialogue. Taking into account and respecting each other’s interests are the main ones among them,"
he specified.
