By calling off Obama’s visit to Moscow, the US has shown it is not ready to build relations on an equal footing, the Kremlin says. The Snowden situation, on which the decision was based, is not Russia’s fault, presidential aide Yury Ushakov stressed.
“We are disappointed by the US administration’s decision to cancel the visit of President Obama to Moscow that was planned for the beginning of September. It is clear that the decision is related to the situation around the former intelligence agency employee Snowden – something that was created not by us,” Ushakov told reporters on Wednesday.
According to Ushakov, the US has “for many years dodged
entering into an extradition treaty” with Russia and
“invariably refused” its extradition requests citing the
absence of such a treaty.
“All this situation shows that the US is still not ready to
build relations with Russia on equal footing,” Putin’s aide
added.
Despite that, Obama’s invitation to visit Moscow remains in
effect, and Russia is “ready to continue working with our
American partners on all the key issues of the bilateral and
multilateral agenda,” Ushakov said.
Earlier today US President Barack Obama canceled a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in
Moscow which was scheduled for September. The move came after
Russia’s recent decision to grant temporary asylum to NSA leaker
Edward Snowden.
The White House cited the lack of progress in “missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last 12 months” as the grounds for the move, adding that Russia’s “disappointing decision” to grant Snowden asylum was also among the factors.
Washington’s decision showed that the US will readily
“sacrifice their bilateral relations with Russia” for the
issues of their “internal agenda,” said Andrey Klimov,
vice chairman of the Federation Council’s International Affairs
Committee.
“We shall not forget such a behavior, but it can by no means
signal a start of another Cold War,” Klimov stressed, adding
that there are “too many issues” that Russia and the US
still need to be working on together.
Rather than seeing it as “a tragedy,” Klimov said he
perceives the move as “an outcome of the situation of the
domestic policy of the US.”
The situation between Russia and the US logically requires that
the two countries’ leaders meet at soon as possible, Foreign
Affairs Committee chairman of the Russian Duma, Aleksey Pushkov
told RIA Novosti, saying that Washington’s decision is only
hindering progress.
“Now that so much negativity has built up [between Russia and
the US], it would have been viable for the presidents of the two
countries to meet and to see what of this negativity could be
overcome, what could be left behind, and to set a new
agenda,” Pushkov said. However, he added that Obama’s refusal
to come to Moscow effectively delays such an opportunity.
Edward Snowden's lawyer Anatoly Kucherena has also been scathing about the cancellation, saying that a human rights decision had been politicized by the Obama administration.
"What has Putin got to do with Snowden? Putin didn't make the decision to grant asylum. This is not even political asylum, but temporary asylum," he told RT.
"It appears that for the US, international policy trumps human
rights, and they don't want to act within the legal boundaries,
simply don't understand that Russia is not able to hand over
Snowden at the current time."